Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multiple periplasmic catalases in phytopathogenic strains of Pseudomonas syringae

Phytopathogenic strains of Pseudomonas syringae are exposed to plant-produced, detrimental levels of hydrogen peroxide during invasion and colonization of host plant tissue. When P. syringae strains were investigated for their capacity to resist H2O2, they were found to contain 10- to 100-fold-higher levels of total catalase activity than selected strains belonging to nonpathogenic related taxa (Pseudomonas fluorescens and Pseudomonas putida) or Escherichia coli. Multiple catalase activities were identified in both periplasmic and cytoplasmic fluids of exponential- and stationary-phase P. syringae cells. Two of these activities were unique to the periplasm of P. syringae pv. glycinea. During the stationary growth phase, the specific activity of cytoplasmic catalases increased four- to eightfold. The specific activities of catalases in both fluids from exponential-phase cells increased in response to treatment with 0.25 to 10 mM H2O2 but decreased when higher H2O2 concentrations were used. In stationary-growth phase cultures, the specific activities of cytoplasmic catalases increased remarkably after treatment with 0.25 to 50 mM H2O2. The growth of P. syringae into stationary phase and H2O2 treatment did not induce synthesis of additional catalase isozymes. Only the stationary-phase cultures of all of the P. syringae strains which we tested were capable of surviving high H2O2 stress at concentrations up to 50 mM. Our results are consistent with the involvement of multiple catalase isozymes in the reduction of oxidative stress during plant pathogenesis by these bacteria.
Europeanization and multi‐level governance: EU cohesion policy and pre‐accession aid in Southeast Europe

This opening contribution provides the framework for discussion for the case studies that follow. It outlines the key concepts employed – simple and compound polities, Europeanization and multi‐level governance – and explains the origins and development of EU cohesion policy and related pre‐accession instruments. It concludes by summarizing the main themes and issues addressed in the subsequent contributions.
How Is Plasminogen/Plasmin System Contributing to Regulate Sperm Entry Into the Oocyte?

Plasminogen is present in the oviduct, on the zona pellucida (ZP) and on oolemma, and reduces the number of sperm penetrating the oocyte during in vitro fertilization in pig and cow. It is unknown how this reduction occurs. We tested whether plasminogen (1) changed the ZP resistance to enzymatic digestion thus making the passage of the spermatozoa across it difficult; (2) reduced the sperm functionality, assessed by sperm viability, motility, spontaneous acrosome reaction and membrane lipid disorder; or (3) affected the sperm–ZP binding before or after sperm–ZP interaction. The mechanism by which plasminogen/plasmin system contributes to regulate sperm entry into the oocyte is not inducing a ZP hardening or a decrease in sperm functionality but detaching more than 50% of sperm bound to the ZP. It is suggested that the fertilizing spermatozoon activates plasminogen into plasmin at the oocyte surface and that plasmin removes additional spermatozoa attached to the ZP.
Effect of chemical disinfection and accelerated aging on color stability of maxillofacial silicone with opacifiers.

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to evaluate the color stability of MDX4-4210 maxillofacial elastomer with opacifier addition submitted to chemical disinfection and accelerated aging. MATERIALS AND METHODS Ninety specimens were obtained from Silastic MDX4-4210 silicone. The specimens were divided into three groups (n = 30): Group I: colorless, Group II: barium sulfate opacifier, Group III: titanium dioxide opacifier. Specimens of each group (n = 10) were disinfected with effervescent tablets, neutral soap, or 4% chlorhexidine gluconate. Disinfection was conducted three times a week for 2 months. Afterward, the specimens were submitted to different periods of accelerated aging. Color evaluation was carried out after 60 days (disinfection period) and after 252, 504, and 1008 hours of accelerated aging, using a reflection spectrophotometer. Color alterations were calculated by the CIE L*a*b* system. Data were analyzed by three-way ANOVA and Tukey test (α= 0.05). RESULTS Group II exhibited the lowest color change, whereas Group III the highest (p < 0.05), regardless of the chemical disinfection and accelerated aging periods. CONCLUSION Opacifier addition, chemical disinfection, and accelerated aging procedures affected the color stability of the maxillofacial silicone.
Does intellectual capital mediate the relationship between HRM and organizational performance? Perspective of a healthcare industry in Taiwan

Previous studies indicate that the linkage between human resource management (HRM) practices and organizational performance is tenuous. Some key intermediate elements evidently have not been accounted for. In an era where intangibles have become the source of wealth and progress, intellectual capital could be one of the missing links. Therefore, this study predicts that the three components of intellectual capital, namely, human capital, relational capital, and organizational capital, mediate the relationship between HRM practices and organizational performance. Data from 277 hospitals, with a response rate of 56%, confirm the mediation role of intellectual capital in explaining the effect of HRM practices on organizational performance.
Structural model of the full-length Ser/Thr protein kinase StkP from S. pneumoniae and its recognition of peptidoglycan fragments

The unique eukaryotic-like Ser/Thr protein kinases of Streptococcus pneumoniae, StkP, plays a primary role in the cell division process. It is composed of an intracellular kinase domain, a transmembrane helix and four extracellular PASTA subunits. PASTA domains were shown to interact with cell wall fragments but the key questions related to the molecular mechanism governing ligand recognition remain unclear. To address this issue, the full-length structural model of StkP was generated by combining small-angle X-ray scattering data with the results of computer simulations. Docking and molecular dynamics studies on the generated three-dimensional model structure reveal the possibility of peptidoglycan fragment binding at the hinge regions between PASTA subunits with a preference for a bent hinge between PASTA3 and PASTA4.
Negotiating Claims: The Emergence of Indigenous Land Claim Negotiation Policies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States

Negotiating Claims: The Emergence of Indigenous Land Claim Negotiation Policies in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States, Christa Scholtz, New York and London: Routledge, 2006, pp. viii, 259. In this well-crafted study, Christa Scholtz sets herself a simple but important question: “Why do [settler-society] governments choose to negotiate [Aborignal] land claims rather than resolve claims through some other means? ” (2). Through close analysis of the context and internal dynamics of executive decision making in Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United States, she provides a convincing answer. And it is a good deal more than simply that landmark high court decisions—the 1973 Calder case in Canada being the archetypical example—forced governments' hands, though she demonstrates that such judicial decisions are crucial catalysts in the decision-making process.
WHEN GOVERNMENT IS NO LONGER EMPLOYER OF CHOICE: WHAT MAY THE SECTOR PERCEPTIONS OF PUBLIC MANAGERS BE LIkE AFTER THE ECONOMY RECOVERS?

In today’s economic climate, government is now considered by many to be the “employer of choice. ” However, employers at all levels of government may eventually lose their recent gains in the war for talent, as the economy improves. Accordingly, it is important to explain how public sector managers viewed the relative advantages and disadvantages of government employment before the economic downturn along specific parameters, including opportunities for women and minorities, managerial autonomy, and employee talent and innovativeness. This paper assesses these views for state-level public managers across a broad range of public services, using survey data that preceded the economic downturn. Specifically, it examines how their past public and private sector career experiences, controlling for their contemporaneous government work experiences, affect their views of the public and private sectors. The study emphasizes career experiences not because past work experience are the only or the most important predictors of sector perceptions generally, but because career trajectory may be the most important consideration for developing strategy for response to government workforce dynamics once the economy improves. Thus, the findings are explained in terms of the related processes of workplace socialization and attitude formation and change, which see public and perhaps also private sector occupational norms and expectations and experiences, past and present, amalgamating to render personal values conducive to favoring one sector over the other. The importance of sector perceptions for human resources management and for broader government workforce concerns as the economy recovers are discussed, as well theory development regarding the career trajectories of public managers.
A model of Spain-Europe telecommunications

In this study we present a model for the outgoing telephone traffic from Spain to a group of 24 European countries. We use a point-to-point model that incorporates the specific characteristics of the international long distance service and the socioeconomic relationships between Spain and this group of countries, taking into account the simultaneity between incoming and outgoing traffic. Recently available data on minutes of conversation in each direction allow us to use panel data for the period 1981-91. We use an orthogonal deviations estimator with instrumental variables. The orthogonal deviations transformation allows the specific unobservable characteristics of each route of traffic to be controlled and the instrumental variables take care of the simultaneity between incoming and outgoing traffic. We estimate a total elasticity of the minutes of outgoing traffic per line with respect to its own real price of - 0.81. Other significant variables are: the volume of trade, the number of visitors from each country, the number of foreign residents and the minutes of incoming traffic. This last variable measures the so-called reciprocal calling effect which is highly significant with a positive elasticity of 0.78.
The Politics of Sustainable Development in UK Government: What Role for Integrated Policy Appraisal?

Attempts to better integrate policy in pursuit of more sustainable development have been made by many countries through the application of ex ante policy appraisal to sectoral policies. The United Kingdom (UK) is often cited as an international leader in this regard, but this is by no means clear. We examine empirically the extent to which the UK Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) system facilitates more integrated, and ultimately sustainable, policies. It appears RIA practice is far from integrated. Many RIAs cover a narrow range of impacts, are conducted late in the policy process, have relatively closed consultation processes, do not explicitly show how trade-offs were made, and use analysis inconsistently, if at all. We argue that providing more resources and improving quality control for RIA may improve integration to only a limited degree. More fundamental barriers to integration are hindered by closed policy communities and institutional processes and therefore may be more difficult to overcome.
African Provident Funds

Discusses national provident funds introduced in six tropical African nations in the 1960s. Reasons for the adoption of provident funds in Africa; Coverage; Eligibility requirements; Primary and subsidiary benefits; Method of payment of benefits; Compliance and enforcement of provisions; Provident-fund assets and investment policies. (Abstract copyright EBSCO.)
Industry Concentration, Excess Returns and Innovation in Australia

type="main" xml:id="acfi12074-abs-0001"> This paper examines market concentration and stock returns on the Australian Securities Exchange. We find that dominant companies operating in concentrated industries in Australia are able to generate significant risk-adjusted excess stock returns. Our results for Australian data are opposite to that found by Hou and Robinson (2006) for United States market data. Hou and Robinson reason that United States firms which operate in concentrated industries are insulated from competitive pressures, have lower levels of innovation (Arrow, 1962) and therefore experience lower profitability and stock returns. By contrast, the Australian data show a significant and positive relationship between concentration and innovation expenditure. Therefore, the excess stock returns of dominant companies in Australia are consistent with previous research linking innovation expenditure with excess stock returns. We hypothesize that the apparent contradiction of our results compared with Hou and Robinson (2006) for the United States market is resolved by an examination of the differences in size and competition in United States and Australian industries and the consequent differential ability of dominant companies in the two countries to generate monopoly rents and invest in ‘Schumpeterian’ (Schumpeter, 1942) innovation.
Expression of type I hair keratins in follicular tumours

Background Hair keratins are specifically expressed in hair and nails. We previously demonstrated the expression of hair keratin basic 1 mRNA in pilomatrixomas. We recently developed a method for immunohistochemical staining of the group of acidic keratins, which have not yet been investigated in human tumours.
Risk management techniques employed within the U.S. credit union industry

This paper reports the findings of a national survey regarding the financial management practices of United States credit unions. The US credit union industry is clearly in a period of transition. The study indicates that the way in which credit unions approach financial management may have a decided impact on how successful the industry adjusts to deregulated marketplaces. The research highlights the importance of managed growth through selective product diversification, identification of profitable market niches, and the use of modern risk management techniques.
Potential Lending Discrimination? Insights from Small Business Financing and New Venture Survival

Previous literature provides potential lending discrimination evidence of disadvantaged women and minority entrepreneurs' high rate of business loan application denial and their unequal access to external and commercial credits in comparison with white business owners. This paper aims to expand the literature and discussions on small business loan discrimination from a new research direction, besides those on loan applications/denials and on loan terms, focusing on the consequences of small business loans in terms of new venture survivability. The proposed new research direction is consistent with similar research approaches in mortgage lending literature examining loan default rates and potential discrimination. The auffman irm urvey data are used with appropriate hazards model for the analysis. Extensive creditworthiness and business survival determinants are applied for controlling for their influences across racial and ethnic groups. The main empirical finding is that after controlling for a wide variety of borrower, establishment, and regional characteristics, business closure rates for minority entrepreneurs are not higher than those for white business owners. This finding does not support the prediction of the model for lender bias against minority entrepreneurs.
Not With my Own: Long-term Effects of Cross-country Collaboration on Subsidiary Innovation in Emerging Economies

Prior literature has established that international collaboration on R&D is an important means for generating new and impactful ideas through the cross-border integration of knowledge. We show that cross-country collaboration improves not just the resulting inventions, but also has a long-term benefit for the involved inventors in terms of continuing to generate higher-impact patents in the future. However, our results also show that the improved performance of specific inventors in an MNC subsidiary does not translate to broader subsidiary-level capabilities at innovation. One possible explanation might be that inventors obtaining international exposure often do not develop collaborative ties with other inventors in the subsidiary, favoring instead to collaborate internationally on subsequent R&D projects.
A Theoretical Model of Type I Collagen Proteolysis by Matrix Metalloproteinase (MMP) 2 and Membrane Type 1 MMP in the Presence of Tissue Inhibitor of Metalloproteinase 2*[boxs]

One well documented family of enzymes responsible for the proteolytic processes that occur in the extracellular matrix is the soluble and membrane-associated matrix metalloproteinases. Here we present the first theoretical model of the biochemical network describing the proteolysis of collagen I by matrix metalloproteinases 2 (MMP2) and membrane type 1 matrix metalloproteinases (MT1-MMP) in the presence of the tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases 2 (TIMP2) in a bulk, cell-free, well stirred environment. The model can serve as a tool for describing quantitatively the activation of the MMP2 proenzyme (pro-MMP2), the ectodomain shedding of MT1-MMP, and the collagenolysis arising from both of the enzymes. We show that pro-MMP2 activation, a process that involves a trimer formation of the proenzyme with TIMP2 and MT1-MMP, is suppressed at high inhibitor levels and paradoxically attains maximum only at intermediate TIMP2 concentrations. We also calculate the conditions for which pro-MMP2 activation is maximal. Furthermore we demonstrate that the ectodomain shedding of MT1-MMP can serve as a mechanism controlling the MT1-MMP availability and therefore the pro-MMP2 activation. Finally the proteolytic synergism of MMP2 and MT1-MMP is introduced and described quantitatively. The model provides us a tool to determine the conditions under which the synergism is optimized. Our approach is the first step toward a more complete description of the proteolytic processes that occur in the extracellular matrix and include a wider spectrum of enzymes and substrates as well as naturally occurring or artificial inhibitors.
The Cell Membrane as a Biosensor of Oxidative Stress Induced by Radiation Exposure: A Multiparameter Investigation

Abstract Benderitter, M. , Vincent-Genod, L. , Pouget, J. P. and Voisin, P. The Cell Membrane as a Biosensor of Oxidative Stress Induced by Radiation Exposure: A Multiparameter Investigation. Radiat. Res. 159, 471–483 (2003). The role of biological membranes as a target in biological radiation damage remains unclear. The present study investigates how the biochemical and biophysical properties of a simple biological model, i.e. human erythrocyte membranes, are altered after exposure to relatively low doses of 60Co γ rays. Lipid peroxidation increased in the hours after radiation exposure, based on measurements of MDA and on the lipid peroxidation index after parinaric acid incorporation. Protein carbonyl content also increased rapidly after radiation exposure. An imbalance between the radiation-mediated oxidative damages and the antioxidant capacity of the erythrocytes was observed in the hours after radiation exposure. Antioxidant enzyme activities, mainly catalase and glutathione peroxidase, were found to decrease after irradiation. The development of a radiation-induced oxidative stress probably explains the reorganization of the fatty acid pattern 72 h after radiation exposure. The phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) fatty acids of the (n-3) and (n-6) series decreased, while the PE saturated fatty acid content increased. All these modifications may be involved in the variation of the biophysical properties of the membranes that we noted after radiation exposure. Specifically, we observed that the lipid compartment of the membrane became more fluid while the lipid–protein membrane interface became more rigid. Taken together, these findings reinforce our understanding that the cell membrane is a significant biological target of radiation. Thus the role of the biological membrane in the expression and course of cell damage after radiation exposure must be considered.
Flexible Property Leasing and the Small Business Tenant

Small businesses and commercial property leasing are two important policy areas for the UK Government. Hence, it has been promoting flexibility and choice in commercial leases as part of a wider enterprise and productivity agenda, and attempting to improve the awareness of small business tenants on property leasing issues. This article addresses issues of flexible leasing specific to small business tenants. Through an analysis of lease data from Investment Property Databank and a questionnaire survey of tenants in England and Wales, it examines the negotiation process, outcomes, and trends stemming from that process. There are major differences between small business leases and those for medium and larger sized companies. Small businesses have shorter leases, fewer rent reviews and earlier breaks. There are also differences in the negotiation process, most noticeably as between the very small micro business and other small businesses. A significant number of very small tenants take no commercial advice when negotiating leases even though many of them have no prior experience of taking leases; the smaller the business the less likely they are to take advice. While flexibility and choice in leasing has improved in recent years, the awareness of small business tenants on leasing issues is less good. Part of the problem may lie in the difficulties of dissemination to a diverse group. However, if voluntary mechanisms cannot demonstrably improve information flows to micro businesses, the small business issue may yet be the catalyst for legislation on all business leases, legislation the UK property industry has fought desperately to avoid for the last 13 years.
Global resource grabs, agribusiness concentration and the smallholder: two West African case studies

This paper places land grabbing within the context of developments within agribusiness within the last 30 years, tracing the various trajectories of increasing competition and concentration and pressures on commodity prices that have resulted in increasing dispossession of smallholders and a move in some agri-food chains towards large estate production. The paper explores the ways in which contemporary agricultural policies and neoliberal market reforms reflect these developments and examines recent framing of land policies in Africa in the context of the development of agrarian capital and agribusiness. Competitiveness results in dispossession of less successful smallholders from below by commercial smallholders, and from above by large estates vertically integrated into agribusiness marketing chains. This is illustrated with examples from the cocoa sector in Côte d'Ivoire and pineapples in Ghana.