Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enhanced osteolytic potential of monocytes/macrophages derived from bone marrow after particle stimulation.

BACKGROUND Total hip replacement can be complicated by periprosthetic osteolysis. Monocytes/macrophages play a major role in the formation of the foreign body granulomas induced by wear debris. We hypothesized that periprosthetic monocytes/macrophages do not only accelerate inflammatory and osteoclast-mediated osteolytic processes, but also resorb periprosthetic bone directly by themselves. This study was designed to evaluate the osteolytic potential in vitro of monocytes/macrophages derived from bone marrow. METHODS Monocytes/macrophages were produced by filtration of rat bone marrow cells, followed by culture in the presence of macrophage-colony stimulating factor (M-CSF). Monocyte/macrophage properties were ascertained using immunocytochemistry and phagocytic activity. Osteolytic cytokines and extracellular matrix degrading proteinases were quantified at the mRNA level. RESULTS Adherent cell fraction was immunoreactive for the monocyte/macrophage specific marker CD68 and active in the phagocytosis of carbon particles up to 72 h. They also showed immunoreactivity to cathepsin K, IL-1beta, IL-6, and M-CSF, but mostly did not react to TRAP. mRNA levels of osteolytic cytokines and extracellular matrix degrading proteinases were enhanced, but that of RANKL were not. Monocytes/macrophages resorbed dentine discs and carbonated calcium phosphate was very actively resorbed after stimulation with titanium particles. DISCUSSION Harvested bone marrow cells expressed monocyte/macrophage phenotype, but not osteoclastic markers. The capacity of these cathepsin-K-positive phagocytic cells to resorb dentine discs and carbonated calcium phosphate in vitro suggests a direct role of monocytes/macrophages in bone resorption and periprosthetic osteolysis. The finding supports our hypothesis and previous histomorphometric observations on the presence of such osteolytic macrophages in vivo around loosening prosthesis.
Multinational-firm responses to an Asian-crisis comeback: evidence from European transnationals

By 2000, the silver-lining in the clouds of the 1997-98 Asian crisis - its prompting of beneficial macroeconomic and political economy reforms throughout the Asia-Pacific region - seemed to have disappeared alongside the 1999 abatement of the crisis. Indeed, commentators in 2000 were warning of the danger that necessary regulatory and institutional changes underlined by the crisis looked like they might not be fully implemented. In consequence, long-term recovery founded on foreign direct investment - the form of overseas capital which the crisis proved to be least unstable compared to short-term bank debt and portfolio investment - might be imperilled. However, are such concerns justified? Data from ninety-nine European firms operating in the Asia-Pacific suggest they are far from misplaced.
Focusing on the clinical impact of standardization of creatinine measurements: a report by the EFCC Working Group on Creatinine Standardization

Abstract The recent campaign for standardization of creatinine measurements has been promoted to allow the widespread use of formulas for estimating the glomerular filtration rate (GFR). However, studies on trueness verification and measurement interferences still show disappointing interassay variation of serum creatinine results. Creatinine recalibration has major clinical consequences. In particular, in pediatrics where reference ranges for serum and plasma creatinine are low, calculation of the GFR is problematic when based on alkaline picrate methods because of method non-specificity and the lack of appropriate GFR estimating formulas. Therefore, enzymatic creatinine assays are preferred. In the near future, cystatin C might offer an interesting alternative for GFR estimation. For the calculation of drug doses, the Modification of Diet in Renal Disease study formula generally offers reliable data. However, attention has to be paid to the elderly. Also, the calculation of the Model for End-Stage Liver Disease score, which is used to prioritize patients for liver transplantation, may significantly be influenced by recalibration of creatinine assays. Creatinine restandardization may also affect the current guidelines for referral of chronic kidney disease patients to nephrologists.
Business Cycle, Currency and Trade, Revisited

This paper reports estimates based on long-run data sets for GDP and trade, with three subsamples chosen to reflect the first globalization period, the "bloc economy" period and the second globalization period. The business cycle is identified as the series of deviates from a Hodrick-Prescott filtered trend, and turning points are identified. Cross-correlations of the cyclical deviates are calculated for all the pairs of the 21 countries examined. It is apparent from casual inspection that the business cycle characteristics and the pattern of crosscorrelations in the bloc economy period are different from those found for the two globalization periods whilst there is less difference between the two globalization periods. Estimation is undertaken of equations to explain the pattern of cross correlations in terms of trade and currency union membership. A dummy for the countries that belong to the Eurozone is found to be significant for the period of the first globalization, that is, well before any manifestation of a common Euro-currency is available. By contrast, Asian business cycle co-movement cannot be found.
Real & Nominal Foreign Exchange Volatility Effects on Exports - The Importance of Timing

This paper compares real and nominal foreign exchange volatility effects on exports. Using a flexible lag version of the Goldstein-Khan two-country imperfect substitutes model for bilateral trade, we identify the overall effect into both a timing as well as a size impact. We find that the size impact of forecasted foreign exchange volatility does not vary according to the measure used in terms of magnitude and direction. However, there are very different timing effects, when we compare real and nominal foreign exchange rate volatility.
Intimate Terrorism and Situational Couple Violence in General Surveys

In this article, we argue that past efforts to distinguish among types of intimate partner violence in general survey data have committed a critical error—using data on current spouses to develop operationalizations of intimate terrorism and situational couple violence. We use ex-spouse data from the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS) to develop new operationalizations. We then demonstrate that NVAWS current spouse data contain little intimate terrorism; we argue that this is likely to be the case for all general surveys. In addition, the ex-spouse data confirm past findings regarding a variety of differences between intimate terrorism and situational couple violence, including those predicted by feminist theories.
Coherence among the Northern Hemisphere land, cryosphere, and oceanresponses to natural variability and anthropogenic forcing during thesatellite era

Abstract. A lack of long-term measurements across Earth's biological and physical systems has made observation-based detection and attribution of climate change impacts to anthropogenic forcing and natural variability difficult. Here we explore coherence among land, cryosphere and ocean responses to recent climate change using 3 decades (1980–2012) of observational satellite and field data throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Our results show coherent interannual variability among snow cover, spring phenology, solar radiation, Scandinavian Pattern, and North Atlantic Oscillation. The interannual variability of the atmospheric peak-to-trough CO2 amplitude is mostly impacted by temperature-mediated effects of El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Pacific/North American Pattern (PNA), whereas CO2 concentration is affected by Polar Pattern control on sea ice extent dynamics. This is assuming the trend in anthropogenic CO2 emission remains constant, or the interannual changes in the trends are negligible. Our analysis suggests that sea ice decline-related CO2 release may outweigh increased CO2 uptake through longer growing seasons and higher temperatures. The direct effects of variation in solar radiation and leading teleconnections, at least in part via their impacts on temperature, dominate the interannual variability of land, cryosphere and ocean indicators. Our results reveal a coherent long-term changes in multiple physical and biological systems that are consistent with anthropogenic forcing of Earth's climate and inconsistent with natural drivers.
Glamour Acquirers, Method of Payment and Post-Acquisition Performance: The UK Evidence

We study the effect of different acquirer types, defined by financial status and their payment methods, on their short and long-term performance, in terms of abnormal returns using a variety of benchmark models. For a sample of 519 UK acquirers during 1983-95, we examine the abnormal return performance of acquirers based on their pre-bid financial status as either glamour or value acquirers using both the price to earnings (PE) ratio and market to book value ratio (MTBV). Value acquirers outperform glamour acquirers in the three-year post-acquisition period. One interpretation is that glamour firms have overvalued equity and tend to exploit their status and use it more often than cash to finance their acquisitions. As we move from glamour to value acquirers, there is a greater use of cash. Our results are broadly consistent with those for the US reported by Rau and Vermaelen (1998). However, in contrast to their study, we find stronger support for the method of payment hypothesis than for extrapolation hypothesis. Cash acquirers generate higher returns than equity acquirers, irrespective of their glamour/ value status. Our conclusions, based on four benchmark models for abnormal returns, suggest that stock markets in both the US and the UK may share a similar proclivity for over-extrapolation of past performance, at least in the bid period. They also tend to reassess acquirer performance in the post-acquisition period and correct this overextrapolation. These results have implications for the behavioural aspects of capital markets in both countries. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2002.
Integrating Decentralized Strategy Making and Strategic Planning Processes in Dynamic Environments

Decentralized post-bureaucratic organizations are deemed to display superior performance in dynamic environments, but recent evidence indicates that centralized integrative cross-functional processes may be equally critical. Accordingly, this paper hypothesizes that organizational performance can be ascribed to the simultaneous emphasis on decentralized strategy making and strategic planning processes. This is investigated in a study of 185 manufacturing organizations operating in diverse industries spanning food processing and computer products. The study shows that both decentralized decision structure and planning activities are associated with higher performance in dynamic environments. These findings confirm that effective organizations engage in more complex strategy formation processes that complement the decentralized post-bureaucratic form with formal mechanisms of rational analyses and operational integration. The paper highlights a need to extend our understanding of the duality between decentralization and planning.
Social Context, Management, and Organizational Performance: When human capital and social capital serve as substitutes

Abstract Do internal (administrative human capital) and external (social capital) resources work to reinforce the effects of each other? Work from multiple disciplines has approached this question, and we advance this literature with a theory of social and administrative resources as potential substitutes for each other in the production of public education outcomes. We argue that social capital benefits some groups more than others and that it interacts with management to improve performance. We therefore expect the benefits associated with social capital to be non-uniform across community groups. Using education as our area of study, we find that social capital offers the most direct and unconditional benefits to white students but that management can use human capital resources to compensate disadvantaged students who may lack support and resources outside of the classroom. We do not find support for the expectation that social capital and human administrative capital reinforce the benefits of each other, but we find evidence that the two resource types are substitutable. This implies that management may substitute human capital resources when social capital is low to benefit public program performance.
Human Physical Aggression as a Function of Frustration: Role of Aggressive Cues

An experiment was performed testing whether aggressive cues are necessary or only facilitative in increasing aggression to a frustration and whether their role is to “pull out” aggression directly or to add to the experience of displeasure. 20 subjects participated and a modified version of the Buss' “aggression machine” was used in which frustration was manipulated within subjects and aggressive cues between subjects. Frustration was of an arbitrary kind and aggression was defined to subjects to have instrumental value in overcoming the frustrative event Results indicated that (1) frustration alone is a weak antecedent of aggression, (2) at low frustration aggressive cues seem to be necessary for aggression to increase, and (3) aggressive cues apparently elicit aggression directly. Results were discussed in terms of Berkowitz' reformulation of the frustration-aggression hypothesis.
Dolichin, a new chitinase-like antifungal protein isolated from field beans (Dolichos lablab).

An antifungal protein, possessing a molecular weight of 28 kDa and an N-terminal sequence resembling chitinases, has been purified from the seeds of the field bean Dolichos lablab. The procedure involved extraction with aqueous buffer, affinity chromatography on Affi-gel blue gel, and ion exchange chromatography on CM-Sepharose. The protein, designated dolichin, exhibited antifungal activity against the fungi Fusarium oxysporum, Rhizoctonia solani, and Coprinus comatus. Dolichin was capable of inhibiting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) reverse transcriptase and alpha- and beta-glucosidases which are glycohydrolases implicated in HIV infection. It had very low ribonuclease and cell-free translation-inhibitory activities.
Hodgkin's disease: evidence for a tumor-associated antigen.

Abstract Perisplenic nodes and splenic tumor nodules were obtained from two patients with Hodgkin's disease and used to immunize individually assigned rabbits. After immunization, the antiserums were absorbed with the normal splenic tissue from the same patient. The absorbed antiserums were used to identify a tumor-associated antigen by indirect immunofluorescence in cryostat sections. Tumor nodules fluoresced, whereas adjacent normal splenic tissue, serving as concomitant control, did not. Common antigenicity between patients was also demonstrated by fluorescence of absorbed antiserums cross-reactive with cryostat sections of other patients' tumors.
Estimation of Disequilibrium Aggregate Labor Market

AN important question in contemporary 1AILeconomics is whether or not the real wage clears the labor market. Its answer has bearing on issues as diverse as the nature of unemployment, the efficacy of fiscal and monetary policies, and the incidence of income taxes. Unfortunately, consensus as to the correct answer seems to be lacking. While much of modern macroeconomic theory allows for the possibility that the real wage fails to equate the supply and demand of labor (Barro and Grossman, 1971; Korliras, 1975), much analysis is based on the assumption of equilibrium in the labor market (Patinkin, 1965). The purpose of the present paper is to carry out an econometric test for which view of the labor market is more appropriate. Although the model we build is very aggregative and much too crude to be used as a basis for policy, we believe that it provides a first step in making operational the theoretical literature on disequilibrium macro models. Our tentative conclusion is that the hypothesis of a labor market in continuous equilibrium must be rejected. In section II we describe briefly some earlier work on modelling the aggregate supply and demand for labor. It is shown that prior studies either assume equilibrium in the labor market, or deal with disequilibrium inadequately. In section III we specify the disequilibrium model. Section IV contains a discussion of estimation problems, an interpretation of the results, and a comparison with an equilibrium version of the model. A concluding section has a summary and an agenda for future research. II. Antecedents
Binding characteristics of the 5‐HT2A receptor antagonists altanserin and MDL 100907

To study the 5‐HT2A receptors in the living human brain, using positron emission tomography (PET), two selective radiotracers are currently in use: [18F]altanserin and [11C]MDL 100907. It is, however, currently unknown to what extent data obtained with either tracer are directly comparable. The aim of this study was to compare binding characteristics of these two radiotracers in rat brain with respect to affinity (Kd), receptor binding density (Bmax), binding potential (BP), and nonspecific binding. Further, binding kinetics, sensitivity towards competition with the endogenous transmitter serotonin, and the competitive/noncompetitive interaction between the two radioligands were evaluated. In addition, the selectivity of [18F]altanserin for the 5‐HT2A receptor was assessed.
Time diversification

T his paper goes beyond traditional portfolio diversification theory, which relates the number of securities in a portfolio to its risk level. Instead, we explore a dual diversification concept that combines the traditional single-period theory with the notion of time diversification. For example, not only must an investor be concerned that his portfolio adequately represents the securities in the market, but he must also be sure that the time period during which he holds his portfolio adequately represents the long-run performance of the market. The greater number of time periods he is in the market, i.e., the greater his time diversifiction, the lower is his risk of not achieving the long-run market return at any level of security diversification. The first section of the paper critically analyzes some of the security diversification literature and then introduces the notion of time diversification as an important additional dimension. The second portion describes the data used to examine the impact of time diversification, while the third part outlines a simulation experiment designed to measure the risk reduction associated with greater time diversification. Part four presents the simulation results, which indicate substantially greater risk reduction can be achieved by holding small-sized portfolios for more time periods than by holding ever larger portfolios for just a few periods. The next section, which analyzes some significant portfolio sizelholding period tradeoff implications suggested by the results, is followed by a brief summary and some important conclusions.
The remuneration of CEOs and corporate financial performance in Norway

Economics and management literatures advocate that senior company executives should be remunerated on the basis of the financial performance of the firms they manage. This helps align the interests of management with those of stockholders. There are, however, problems in implementing pay for performance schemes and these, along with other factors, may lead to there being no empirical relationship between compensation and stockholder returns. This study set out to explore the determinants of chief executive compensation in Norwegian stock exchange listed firms. To date there have been very few studies on this topic using data from Norway; most previous research has employed American data. The results show a positive relationship between CEO pay and corporate size but there was no significant association between remuneration and corporate financial performance as measured by accounting profitability and as measured by stock returns. Estimates of the value added by companies were significantly related to chief executive pay. There was also a positive and significant relationship between a CEO's compensation and the average wage level of the company. This association may be due to the unique characteristics of Norway's social and economic structure.
Fund of Funds Diversification

JEREMY C. STAUM is a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia Business School and Director of Research PARADIGM Capital Management in New York. A lthough considerable research in the alternative investment area concentrates on the performance characteristics of individual hedge funds or commodity tradŽ . Ž ing advisors CTAs e.g. Fung and Hsieh . 1997a, 1997b , many investors hold a portfolio of alternative investment managers. For traditional investments, the rule of thumb that nearly all of the diversifiable risk is eliminated in a portfolio of ten stocks dates back to Evans and Archer 1968 . Evans and Archer discussed the mathematical relationship between the size and variance of a portfolio and showed that for an equally weighted portfolio each randomly selected security added to the portfolio produces an ever smaller decrease in portfolio variance. The actual impact of random security diversification for stock and bond portfolios has been analyzed by various authors. Both Elton and Gruber 1977 and Hill and Schneeweis 1980 illustrated the impact of random security selection on portfolio variance for stocks and bonds, respectively. In both cases, the final impact is determined by the intrasample correlations. For instance, Hill and Schneeweis show that for portfolios of AAA bonds, the high intracorrelation of AAA rated bonds, in contrast to BAA rated bonds, lessens the impact of diversification on portfolio variance. Hill and Schneeweis also showed that as secuŽ rities are added, the tracking error the difference of the randomly selected portfolio’s variance from its expected vari. 1 ance decreases. As such, investors must realize that not only does diversification reduce portfolio variance, it also increases accuracy in achieving the expected level of risk.