Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neuropilin-1 is a receptor for transforming growth factor β-1, activates its latent form, and promotes regulatory T cell activity

Neuropilin‐1 (Nrp1) is a multifunctional protein, identified principally as a receptor for the class 3 semaphorins and members of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) family, but it is capable of other interactions. It is a marker of regulatory T cells (Tr), which often carry Nrp1 and latency‐associated peptide (LAP)‐TGF‐β1 (the latent form). The signaling TGF‐β1 receptors bind only active TGF‐β1, and we hypothesized that Nrp1 binds the latent form. Indeed, we found that Nrp1 is a high‐affinity receptor for latent and active TGF‐β1. Free LAP, LAP‐TGF‐β1, and active TGF‐β1 all competed with VEGF165 for binding to Nrp1. LAP has a basic, arginine‐rich C‐terminal motif similar to VEGF and peptides that bind to the b1 domain of Nrp1. A C‐terminal LAP peptide (QSSRHRR) bound to Nrp1 and inhibited the binding of VEGF and LAP‐TGF‐β1. We also analyzed the effects of Nrp1/LAP‐TGF‐β1 coexpression on T cell function. Compared with Nrp1– cells, sorted Nrp1+ T cells had a much greater capacity to capture LAP‐TGF‐β1. Sorted Nrp1– T cells captured soluble Nrp1‐Fc, and this increased their ability to capture LAP‐TGF‐β1. Conventional CD4+CD25–Nrp1– T cells coated with Nrp1‐Fc/LAP‐TGF‐β1 acquired strong Tr activity. Moreover, LAP‐TGF‐β was activated by Nrp1‐Fc and also by a peptide of the b2 domain of Nrp1 (RKFK; similar to a thrombospondin‐1 peptide). Breast cancer cells, which express Nrp1, also captured and activated LAP‐TGF‐β1 in a Nrp1‐dependent manner. Thus, Nrp1 is a receptor for TGF‐β1, activates its latent form, and is relevant to Tr activity and tumor biology.
Industry Momentum and Sector Mutual Funds

Recent academic research has ascribed the intermediate-term (3-month to 12-month) momentum present in U.S. stock returns to an industry effect. In the intermediate term, strong (weak) industry performance is followed by continued strong (weak) industry performance. The industry-specific aspect of momentum gives rise to profitable trading strategies that use industry-sector mutual funds. In this study, strategies of buying previous intermediate-term top-performing sector funds outstripped the S&P 500 Index over the 10-year period from May 1989 through April 1999 on a total-return basis. These strategies entailed greater total and systematic risk, however, than the index.
Multimedia Aided Consent for Alzheimer’s Disease Research

ABSTRACT Objectives: Optimizing the research consent process simultaneously fosters respect for autonomy and protection of those with diminished capacity for autonomy. This study evaluated the effectiveness of an enhanced research consent procedure, employing multimedia disclosure and corrective feedback, in improving decisional capacity among 114 people with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and 134 non-psychiatric comparison (NC) subjects. Methods: Participants were randomized to consent type (routine versus enhanced) and protocol type (lower versus higher risk). Outcomes included a 5-item questionnaire assessing immediate comprehension, MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Clinical Research assessing four components of decision-making capacity, and categorical decisional capacity (based on a cut-score established in reference to expert judgments for a subset of participants). Results: There was no significant effect of the enhanced consent procedure, relative to routine consent, on immediate comprehension or decisional capacity. Conclusions: Multimedia tools do not appear to be the solution to better consent for AD research. Clinical Implications: Given the ethical primacy of informed consent and issues of justice for impaired populations who might be harmed by an absence of research-based treatment advances, continued search for ways to more meaningfully engage people with AD in the consent or assent process is warranted.
Centralised or Decentralised? Strategic Implications of Resource Allocation Models

This paper examines the strategic implications of resource allocation models (RAMs). Four interrelated aspects of resource allocation are discussed: degree of centralisation, locus of strategic direction, cross-subsidy, and locus of control. The paper begins with a theoretical overview of these concepts, locating the study in the contexts of both strategic management literature and the university. The concepts are then examined empirically, drawing upon a longitudinal study of three UK universities, Warwick, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and Oxford Brookes. Findings suggest that RAMs are historically and culturally situated within the context of each university and this is associated with different patterns of strategic direction and forms of strategic control. As such, the RAM in use may be less a matter of best practice than one of internal fit. The paper concludes with some implications for theory and practice by discussing the potential trajectories of each type of RAM.
Hu antigen specificities of ANNA-I autoantibodies in paraneoplastic neurological disease.

Despite a broad clinical spectrum, paraneoplastic enecephalomyelitis/sensory neuronopathy (PEM/SSN) is characterized by the presence of a common autoantibody, referred to as anti-Hu or type I anti-neuronal nuclear antibody (ANNA-1). The target of these antibodies is a family of four Hu antigens: three (Hel-N1, HuC, HuD) are neural-specific, while the fourth (HuR) is ubiquitous. Here, we have analysed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) the immunoreactivity of all four Hu antigens in serum from 75 patients with ANNA-1 autoantibodies and looked for clinical correlations. IgG in all the patients' sera bound to each of the four antigens, and the titers correlated with those of the ANNA-I immunofluorescence assay. Median titers for the neural-specific antigens (range: 56, 892-90,051) were significantly higher than for HuR (36,799). Patients with gastrointestinal dysmotility or subacute sensory neuronopathy had the highest median titers to all four antigens, while patients with sensorineural deafness had the lowest titers. The results indicate a heterogeneous immune response to individual Hu antigens in patients with PEM/SSN, and that the titers to these antigens as a group, rather than individually, correlate with clinical profile. Furthermore, these results suggest that ELISA analysis of a single neural-specific Hu antigen is sufficient for serological screening in PEM/SSN.
Correlation Dynamics and Determinants in International Securitized Real Estate Markets

type="main"> We find the correlation movements among eight developed securitized real estate markets and among their stock markets are quite synchronized over the period from 1995 through 2012. There is a high degree of correlation dependence with many of the realized correlation series subject to regime switching. Moreover, international correlations of public property returns could be significantly explained by five real estate variables that include global real estate securities market volatility, co-existence of real estate investment trust (REIT) influence, underlying direct real estate return performance differential, real estate securities volatility differential and real estate securities market size differential after controlling for macroeconomic influence and stock market effect. The importance of the control and real estate variables in explaining the return correlations varies across the economies examined.
Learning Coarse-to-Fine Structured Feature Embedding for Vehicle Re-Identification

Vehicle re-identification (re-ID) is to identify the same vehicle across different cameras. It’s a significant but challenging topic, which has received little attention due to the complex intra-class and inter-class variation of vehicle images and the lack of large-scale vehicle re-ID dataset. Previous methods focus on pulling images from different vehicles apart but neglect the discrimination between vehicles from different vehicle models, which is actually quite important to obtain a correct ranking order for vehicle re-ID. In this paper, we learn a structured feature embedding for vehicle re-ID with a novel coarse-to-fine ranking loss to pull images of the same vehicle as close as possible and achieve discrimination between images from different vehicles as well as vehicles from different vehicle models. In the learnt feature space, both intra-class compactness and inter-class distinction are well guaranteed and the Euclidean distance between features directly reflects the semantic similarity of vehicle images. Furthermore, we build so far the largest vehicle re-ID dataset "Vehicle-1M," which involves nearly 1 million images captured in various surveillance scenarios. Experimental results on "Vehicle-1M" and "VehicleID" demonstrate the superiority of our proposed approach.
Intra-Continental and Intercontinental Service Trade in the Travel and Tourism Industry

This study investigates the features and determinants of the international travel and tourism service trade between the European, Asian and North American markets from 2000 to 2005. The evolution of bilateral service trade in each of these markets indicates that travel and tourism within continents plays an important role in 36 countries. The study first employs the Breusch–Pagan LM (Lagrange multiplier) test, the Hausman test and the Hausman–Taylor over-identification test to choose the appropriate empirical method. The empirical results reveal that the supply–pull effect from parent countries (the economic size of tourist origins) plays an important role in improving the tourism service exports of the various destinations. In addition, the home countries' exports of travel services are inelastic to the appreciation of their own currencies. Moreover, distribution infrastructures and the adjacency and RTA (ASEAN) dummies are found to have significantly positive contributions in terms of enhancing Asian tourism service exports, whereas the European Union (EU) and NAFTA discourage European and North American tourism exports, respectively.
Effects of 50 Hz rotating magnetic field on the viability of Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus

Abstract This study presents results of research on the influence of rotating magnetic field (RMF) of the induction of 30 mT and the frequency of 50 Hz on the growth dynamics and cell metabolic activity of E. coli and S. aureus, depending on the exposure time. The studies showed that the RMF caused an increase in the growth and cell metabolic activity of all the analyzed bacterial strains, especially in the time interval t = 30 to 150 min. However, it was also found that the optical density and cell metabolic activity after exposition to RMF were significantly higher in S. aureus cultures. In turn, the study of growth dynamics, revealed a rapid and a significant decrease in these values from t = 90 min) in the case of E. coli samples. The obtained results prove that RMF (B = 30 mT, f = 50 Hz) has a stimulatory effect on the growth and metabolic activity of E. coli and S. aureus. Furthermore, taking into account the time of exposure, stronger influence of RMF on the viability was observed in S. aureus cultures, which may indicate that this effect depends on the shape of the exposed cells.
Climate change, natural hazards, and risk perception: the role of proximity and personal experience

Understanding public risk perception related to possible consequences of climate change is of paramount importance. Not only does risk perception have an important role in shaping climate policy, it is also central in generating support for initiatives for adaptation and mitigation. In order to influence public knowledge and opinion, there is a need to know more about why people have diverging attitudes and perceptions related to climate change and its possible consequences. By using representative survey data for Norway and multivariate analysis, the authors of this article show that differences in attitudes and perceptions are partially explained by factors such as gender, educational background, and people's political preferences. However, an important factor explaining people's perception of climate change and its possible consequences is their direct personal experience of damage caused by climate-related events such as flooding or landslide. Furthermore, the results show that personal experience of damage has the largest impact on the respondents' belief that there will be more natural-resource hazards locally than in Norway or globally. The results also show that merely living in a more exposed area but not having a personal experience of damage does not affect the respondents' concern towards climate change.
Product Design for Life‐Cycle Mismatch

Life‐cycle mismatch occurs when the life cycle of a product does not coincide with the life cycles of the parts used in that product. This is particularly a problem with products that contain electronic components that sometimes have life spans of only two years. The cost of mitigating component obsolescence, which may require redesigning the product, is often considerable. Thus, prudent product design necessitates the selection of electronic components and product architecture, considering the cost of mitigating an obsolete design and other costs related to the design and manufacture of a product. Accordingly, we develop and analyze a model that shows how a product design can be effectively tailored to a particular product's life cycle.
Exchange rate uncertainty and US bilateral fresh fruit and fresh vegetable trade: an application of the gravity model

In order to analyse the effect of exchange rate uncertainty, we apply an empirical gravity equation to two sets of US bilateral trade data: fresh fruit over the period 1976–1999 for a panel of 26 countries; and fresh vegetables over the period 1976–2006 for a panel of nine countries. Based on panel estimation methods, and using both a moving SD measure and the Perée and Steinherr (1989) measure of exchange rate uncertainty, the results show that US bilateral fresh fruit trade has been negatively affected by exchange rate uncertainty. We also find some evidence that the exchange rate between the US dollar and the currencies of Latin American trading partners accounts for most of the negative impact of exchange rate uncertainty on bilateral trade flows in fresh fruit. In contrast, when using panel estimation methods and both measures of exchange rate uncertainty, we find no statistically significant evidence for any negative effect of exchange rate uncertainty on US bilateral fresh vegetable trade. However, we do find a statistically significant negative effect for exchange rate uncertainty when we estimate a US export gravity equation for fresh vegetables using the same panel of countries.
Corporate Productivity Growth: Champions, Leaders, and Laggards

This paper examines the relative productivity growth performance of a sample of large UK firms between 1986 and 1995. We find that superior productivity growth, however measured, is not persistentfirms with high productivity growth rates relative to (say) the average in 1 yr are as likely as not to display below-average performance in the following year. Studying the determinants of the length of time for which firms outperform their peers, we find that innovative firms carrying low debt who are relatively free from financial distress are likely to display whatever persistently superior performance we observe in the data.
The ethical decision-making processes of professional auditors in the people's republic of China

The Ethical Decision-Making Processes of Professional Auditors in the People’s Republic of China by LIU Mingzhi Master of Philosophy This study examines the effects of organizational ethical culture, idealism, relativism and guanxi orientation on the ethical decision-making processes of professional auditors in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It is hypothesized that auditors perceiving a positive organizational ethical culture, possessing higher (lower) degrees of idealism (relativism), and possessing lower degrees of guanxi orientation will make more ethical decisions. The findings of the study indicate that certain aspects of organizational ethical culture had a significant effect on professional auditors’ behavioural intentions, but not on their ethical judgments. Idealism had a marginally significant impact on professional auditors’ behavioral intentions, but not on their ethical judgments. Relativism did not have a significant impact on ethical judgments or behavioral intentions. Guanxi orientation had a significant effect on professional auditors’ behavioural intentions, but not on their ethical judgments. This study also explores the potential effects of demographics on PRC professional auditors’ ethical decision-making processes and the results suggest that CPA firm type (local/regional vs. international) had a significant effect on professional auditors’ behavioural intentions. The overall findings suggest that organizational ethical culture, idealism, guanxi orientation, and CPA firm type play a significant role in PRC professional auditors’ ethical decision-making processes.
Similitudes and Discrepancies in Post‐Keynesian and Marxist Theories of Investment: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation1

There has been a substantial amount of convergence between post‐Keynesian and Marxist economics, the writings of Kalecki being common ground for both traditions. Still, some differences remain. While authors in both traditions seem to agree to a large extent on short‐period issues, long‐period matters relating to the role of saving, the rate of profit, inflation, crowding out, excess money supply, are still contentious. All this seems to depend on the exact form taken by the investment function, more specifically the role of capacity utilization. Four different equations are set up to be tested, two of which correspond to two variants of the Marxist view, while the other two equations correspond to a naive and a sophisticated Kaleckian view, the latter being based on hysteresis. The equations are tested on three sets of annual Canadian data. Various statistical tests are applied to all four equations in an effort to rank them, notably information and encompassing tests. The Kaleckian equation with hysteresis generally comes out empirically with the preferred statistical properties, when manufacturing data on actual rates of capital accumulation are considered separately or when both realized and intended rates of investment for the total industrial sector are used.
Price Impacts and Quote Adjustment on the NASDAQ and Nyse/Amex

We compare the price impact of trades across market structures by examining firms that switch exchanges. When firms are listed on Nasdaq, quoted prices adjust quite slowly to the information contained in order flow. On average, it takes about 5 minutes (or about 6 transactions) for half of the eventual price impact to be incorporated into quotes. In contrast, quotes in NYSE and AMEX firms adjust much more quickly, with half-lives around one transaction. This has important implications for measures of adverse selection or information content. Price impacts are likely to be severely downward biased (particularly on Nasdaq) if they are estimated using only the immediate quote response. For example, using immediate price impacts (e.g., the change in quotes prior to the next trade), Nasdaq price impacts are far smaller than NYSE price impacts (1 vs. 9 basis points). Using cumulative price impacts four hours later, the conclusions are different: price impacts average about 20 bps on both exchanges. In terms of methodology, quote adjustment is too slow to be explained solely by the Madhavan, Richardson, and Roomans (1997) model. For this reason, we model midpoint adjustment using both a VAR and a partial adjustment model. We also discuss possible explanations for this phenomenon.
Anonymity versus Punishment in Ultimatum Bargaining

Abstract Previous investigations have shown that laboratory play of the ultimatum game differs from the perfect equilibrium prediction. The anonymity hypothesis attributes this to a distortion of subject objectives caused by the act of experimental observation. An alternative hypothesis attributes the phenomenon to the willingness of some subjects to punish those who treat them "unfairly," independent of any experimenter influence. We test these hypotheses. In a control cell, 30% of play is in equilibrium. In a second cell, played under strong experimenter-subject anonymity conditions, 46% of play is in equilibrium. A third cell, in which subject capacity to punish has been removed, exhibits equilibrium play approaching 100%. The evidence supports the conclusion that the punishment hypothesis explains much more of the deviation from perfect equilibrium than does the anonymity hypothesis. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C78, C92.
The impact of geographically defined school zones on house prices in New Zealand

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore and quantify the impact of geographically defined school zones on house prices in New Zealand. Design/methodology/approach - This paper develops a series of hedonic pricing models to analyse 10,000 house sales transactions over a 21-year period within a compact group of inner Auckland suburbs, which represents the epicentre of the school zoning debate in New Zealand. The study diverts from past research, which mainly focuses on school quality measures such as standardised test scores, and instead analyses the comprehensive price impacts of access to popular state schools. Its unique approach employs a geographic information system to divide the study area into effective school zones and then further subdivide into suburbs, thus offering a vital indicator of internal validity. Findings - The study's findings indicate that the influence of school zoning on house prices is not uniform and the variation in price effects is largely a function of the uncertainty of future zone boundary definitions. Although some “in-zone” suburbs have enjoyed accelerated house price growth following the reintroduction of zoning in 2000, peripheral suburbs’ price premiums have diminished. Originality/value - In contrast to standard hedonic studies on school quality, this paper offers an innovative approach that integrates geography to solve what is essentially a spatial economic problem.