Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Erectile Dysfunction: Evaluation and New Treatment Options

Objective: Erectile dysfunction (ED) is a common condition of aging men. Indeed as many as 50% of men over age 40 will suffer some degree of ED. This erectile dysfunction has substantial impact on interaction with their partners, families, and employment. ED may be a harbinger of more serious vascular events and is commonly associated with depression. Methods: Evaluation of ED begins with a careful history, asking the patient about his sexual function during clinical visits. Once identified, ED must be carefully considered with full history, careful physical examination, and laboratory studies to include markers of vascular risk factors, diabetes, and hypogonadism. Results: The treatment of ED was revolutionized by the introduction of phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitors in 1998. Currently, 3 PDE5 inhibitors are available internationally with excellent expected results and somewhat unique profiles. Although these agents are safe in all patients who do not have severe cardiac disease or who are taking nitrate medications, they require some patient instruction and counseling to optimize results. In that small group of patients who do not respond to these oral medications, additional alternatives are available for patients motivated to pursue treatment of their ED. Conclusion: Currently available safe and effective alternatives for the treatment of ED can improve the lives of patients and partners and increase their quality of life. ED = erectile dysfunction; NHSLS = National Health and Social Life Survey; NANC = nonadrenergic-noncholinergic; NO = neurotransmitters nitric oxide; Ach = acetylcholine; cGMP = cyclic guanosine monophosphate; PDE5 = phosphodiesterase type 5.
MEASUREMENT OF RISK, SOLVENCY REQUIREMENTS AND ALLOCATION OF CAPITAL WITHIN FINANCIAL CONGLOMERATES

This paper addresses the allocation of solvency capital in multi- line financial businesses. Although this paper is uniformly applicable to financial enterprises of all types, the terminology in the paper is mainly that of insurance. The TailVaR risk measure is extended in a natural way to allocating capital to each of the business units. This method of allocation allocates capital in a way that is invariant over the method of decomposing the enterprise into business units. Analytic results are derived in the case of multivariate Normal risks. The key result of this paper is that the TailVaR-based proportional allocation of total required capital is identical to that based on mean -variance considerations analogous to the CAPM in the case of the multivariate Normal distribution. The allocation methodology results are then applied to a real bancassurance portfolio of 10 lines of business to illustrate the various concepts discussed in the paper. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the AFIR/ICA conference in March 2002 in Cancun, Mexico.
U-Shaped Cost of Equity Function? Digging into Modigliani-Miller (1958) Mistake

Modigliani and Miller (1958, The cost of capital, corporation finance and the theory of investment, The American Economic Review, Vol. 48, No 3) assert that, beyond some high level of leverage, the cost of equity curve may be decreasing. Despite the lack of rigour of their argument, this proposition received a small amount of criticism. However, it is wrong: in an MM world, the cost of equity function must be increasing, because under the dynamics of MM Proposition II, the marginal cost of debt must be lower than the cost of equity. Should, by any chance, the marginal cost of debt be higher than the cost of equity, arbitrage opportunities, incompatible with market equilibrium, would emerge. In this way, the intuitive idea that the cost of equity may increase unboundedly is recovered. Nevertheless, the cost of equity function will tend to infinity only if the first derivative of the interest cost function also tends to infinity. Otherwise, in the limit, the cost of equity will tend to a finite number. These findings reinforce the theoretical validity of MM propositions.
Architecture-Based Conformance Testing

In the last two decades, software architecture has played a central role in the development of software systems. It provides a high-level description for large-size and complex systems using suitable bstractions of the system's components and their interactions. In our work, the software architecture is described using a formal Architecture Description Language (ADL) designed in the ArchWare European Project, pi -ADL-C&C. One of the purposes of this ADL is to allow formal validation of an implemented system with respect to its architectural model. In this paper, we propose a conformance testing approach for validating a software system with respect to its architecture. The architectural abstract test cases are derived from an Input-Output Symbolic Transition System (IOSTS) representing the architecture structure and behaviors, which are then translated into concrete test cases to be executed on the system under test. To illustrate our approach we use the coffee machine example.
Home Country Macroeconomic Fundamentals and the ADR Market: The Case of the BRICsï»¿

This study investigates the linkages of the ADR prices of the BRICs with their respective home country economic fundamentals. Specifically, the paper attempts to explore the (a) long run relationship and (b) short run lead-lag relationship between the ADR prices and the major economic indicators for the home country. Using a Johansen Vector Autorgressive (VAR) approach with monthly data for the period January 2000 to February 2013, we find that, with the exception of Russia, there is a long run relationship between ADR prices and the home country’s economic growth. This seems to be in line with the conventional view that ‘higher growth higher returns’. The evidence for the short run dynamics suggests that past values of some of the economic indicators can be used to forecast Brazilian, Russian and Indian ADR returns. The predictability may allow investors to exploit excess returns on ADRs based on these macroeconomic variables. In general, the short run dynamics for the case of ADRs are different from that of their respective home country stock market index.
Modelling inflation in Lesotho : a cointegration analysis

The paper analyses the dynamics of inflation in Lesotho using the cointegration and error-correction techniques for the period 1980-2010. The results indicate that inflation inertia, output gap and the South African prices have been the main determinants of the long-run inflation process in Lesotho while money supply, nominal exchange rate and government spending appear to have no significant effect. The observed high degree of inflation persistence could be a reflection of backward-looking adjustments in wages and gradual adjustments in administered prices and subsidies within the country. Furthermore, the results reveal that inflation in Lesotho has experienced significant fluctuations in the short-run due to some policy changes as well as exogenous shocks. However, given that the country operates under a fixed exchange rate regime, fiscal policy remains the major instrument for maintaining macroeconomic stability and as a result, the appropriate balance between price stability and economic growth could be attained through a closer coordination between monetary and fiscal policies.
The Industrial Impact of Monetary Policy Shocks: Some Stylised Facts

This paper investigates the disaggregated effects of monetary policy shocks on the output of 24 sectors of the UK economy. The paper's principal aim is to provide stylised facts about the sectoral responses to unexpected changes in monetary policy and to help assess how monetary policy developments feed through the economy. It also provides indirect evidence about the underlying nature of the transmission mechanism. The first set of results relates to the largest industrial sectors - construction, services, production industries (including utilities and manufacturing) - which sum together to form the output measure of GDP. Thereafter the paper focuses on the manufacturing sector alone. Data sources for manufacturing are richer than for other sectors of the economy, which allows a more detailed analysis of the factors that might account for the pattern of responses to monetary shocks which we observe across manufacturing. Focusing first on the main industrial sectors, the paper finds that the effects of an unanticipated monetary policy tightening seem to be unevenly distributed across sectors of the economy. As might be expected, sectors such as construction show a sizeable and rapid decline in output, whereas others, like services, show a much more muted reaction. Manufacturing as a whole also responds quite sharply to a monetary tightening, but some large industrial sectors, notably the utilities, show a subdued reaction. Turning finally to the manufacturing sector alone, the paper shows that the (2 digit SIC) sectors that comprise manufacturing also exhibit diverse responses to a monetary shock. The paper shows the pattern of manufacturing sector responses seems correlated with the size characteristics of the firms in each sector. In particular, sectors which mainly comprise "small" firms tend to exhibit a stronger reaction to monetary shocks than sectors that mainly comprise "larger" firms. This might indicate that credit market imperfections play a role in the monetary policy transmission process.
Shortchanged: Why Women Have Less Wealth and What Can Be Done About It

1. The Women's Wealth Gap: What is it and why do we care? 2. Who Has What? 3. The Wealth Escalator and the Debt Anchor 4. How the Deck is Stacked Against Mothers 5. Saving and Investing: Do men and women do it differently? 6. Marriage: What's mine is yours? 7. Public Solutions: Why equal pay and family-friendly policies aren't enough and what should be done instead APPENDIX DATA AND METHODS REFERENCES INDEX
TE and TM Green ’ s Function for Coherent and Incoherent Propagation over a Finitely Conducting Rough Surface

This paper presents wave propagation over a finitely conducting half-space whose surface is bounded by a rough surface of small rms height. An electric or magnetic current source is used to excite the rough surface and the Green’s function for TE and TM wave propagation is obtained. The appearance of roughness at the boundary produces both a coherent (mean) and incoherent (fluctuating) field distribution, which is obtained from Dyson’s equation and Bethe-Salpeter’s equation, respectively. The coherent Green’s function for vertical polarization exhibits similar characteristics to the Sommerfeld dipole problem where the Zenneck wave pole is modified by roughness. The incoherent field generated by rough surfaces is obtained for both vertical and horizontal polarization, and the conventional cross-section per unit length of the rough surface is modified to include the effects of surface roughness. For angles near grazing, a low grazing angle cross-section is obtained by evaluating the Bethe-Salpeter’s equation with the Sommerfeld solution. Finally, the coherent and incoherent intensity for the TE rough surface Green’s function is obtained and compared to Monte-Carlo simulations.
Kv1.1‐dependent control of hippocampal neuron number as revealed by mosaic analysis with double markers

• The classical function of potassium channels in electrical signaling is to regulate nerve conduction, muscle contraction and hormone secretion. • Certain types of potassium channels are also involved in regulating cell proliferation, as in the case of Kv1.1 mutant mice, which exhibit overgrowth of neurons and astrocytes thus leading to the phenotype of megencephaly, or enlarged brain, particularly in the hippocampus. • We used a novel mouse genetic tool, Mosaic Analysis with Double Markers (MADM), to test whether Kv1.1 function is required cell‐autonomously for megencephaly. We found that in the adult hippocampus, neurons but not astrocytes lacking Kv1.1 are more numerous than their counterparts with two functional alleles of Kv1.1. • Our study reveals that loss of Kv1.1 function causes an overproduction of hippocampal neurons in a cell‐autonomous manner. • This study raises the prospect that targeting Kv1.1 potassium channel may help to induce neuron production.
Policing the Perimeter: Disgust and Purity in Democratic Debate

Abstract We explicate the precise role that one specific emotion, disgust, plays in generating political acrimony. We do this by identifying the link between the different dimensions along which moral judgments are made by those espousing different political ideologies and the different emotions which undergird these evaluations. These assessments reliably track along liberal and conservative dimensions and are linked to the way values associated with purity and sanctity elicit greater degrees of disgust among conservatives. Here, we review a growing literature showing how disgust affects the psychology of politics through its influence on the cognitive and emotional processes that govern judgments of morality, as well as its direct impact on specific policy preferences. We then apply these findings to the nature and tenor of political discourse and suggest some ways that disgust might affect the character and function of democratic debate and tolerance. Finally, we discuss what these findings mean for public policy.
The Dynamics of Female Employment around Childbirth

There is a strong effect of childbirth on female labour supply. This effect is expected to be influenced, among others, by the institutional context. This paper uses panel data on the last two decades on three European countries (The Netherlands, Germany, United Kingdom) to link changes in female labour force behaviour around childbirth to changes in the national institutional context. We conclude that institutions that make the costs of combining work and family lower relative to being a full-time mother will increase female participation rates. Therefore, it is important for both women and policymakers to be aware of the possible patterns, the 'ideal pattern' (from an economic point of view), and the ways the preferred patterns can be supported by the institutional context.Keywords: female labour supply, transitions, institutions.
RNA-dependent protein kinase (PKR) depletes nutrients, inducing phosphorylation of AMP-activated kinase in lung cancer

We have demonstrated that RNA-dependent protein kinase (PKR) and its downstream protein p-eIF2α are independent prognostic markers for overall survival in lung cancer. In the current study, we further investigate the interaction between PKR and AMPK in lung tumor tissue and cancer cell lines. We examined PKR protein expression in 55 frozen primary lung tumor tissues by Western blotting and analyzed the association between PKR expression and expresson of 139 proteins on tissue samples examined previously by Reverse Phase Protein Array (RPPA) from the same 55 patients. We observed that biomarkers were either positively (phosphorylated AMP-activated kinaseT172 [p-AMPK]) or negatively (insulin receptor substrate 1, meiotic recombination 11, ATR interacting protein, telomerase, checkpoint kinase 1, and cyclin E1) correlated with PKR. We further confirmed that induction of PKR with expression vectors in lung cancer cells causes activation of the AMPK protein independent of the LKB1, TAK1, and CaMKKβ pathway. We found that PKR causes nutrient depletion, which increases AMP levels and decreases ATP levels, causing AMPK phosphorylation. We further demonstrated that inhibiting AMPK expression with compound C or siRNA enhanced PKR-mediated cell death. We next explored the combination of PKR and p-AMPK expression in NSCLC patients and observed that expression of p-AMPK predicted a poor outcome for adenocarcinoma patients with high PKR expression and a better prognosis for those with low PKR expression. These findings were consistent with our in vitro results. AMPK might rescue cells facing metabolic stresses, such as ATP depletion caused by PKR. Our data indicate that PKR causes nutrient depletion, which induces the phosphorylation of AMPK. AMPK might act as a protective response to metabolic stresses, such as nutrient deprivation.
People, jobs and mobility in the new Europe

Part 1 Introduction: Concepts and Values Migration, Employment and Spatial Restructuring in Europe Economic Restructuring, Changing Lifestyles and Migration. Part 2 Empirical Overviews Economic Dynamics and Regional Types in Europe Employment Decentralization and Population Redistribution in Europe Economic Restructuring and Socio-Spatial Mobility in Europe: The Role of International Migrants. Part 3 People, Jobs and Restructuring in European Peripheral Regions Rural Depopulation in Turkey: Migration and Economic Restructuring Portugal in the 1980s and 1990s: Economic Restructuring and Population Mobility Youth Migration, Labour Markets and Locality in the West of Ireland Population Redistribution in the Sparsely Population Periphery: The Nordic Case The Transition of Labour Markets in Formally Centrally Planned Economies New Patterns of Population Mobility in the Former Centrally Planned Economies of East Europe. Part 4 People Jobs and Restructuring in European Core Regions Migration and Socio-Economic Restructuring in Old Industrial Regions: The Cases of North East England and the Ruhr Area Population Mobility and New Industrial Districts: The Case of the "Third Italy" The Role of the Technological Change in the Redistribution of Jobs and People in France Migration, Business Cycles and Unemployment in West Germany Migration and the Global City: The Case of London Migration, Dualization and Tertiarization: Brussels Economic Restructuring, Housing and Residential Mobility in the Randstad Holland. Part 5 Conclusion Migration in Fordist and Post-Fordist Economies.
Metuzumab enhanced chemosensitivity and apoptosis in non-small cell lung carcinoma

ABSTRACT Targeted therapeutics is used as an alternative treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC); however, treatment effect is far from being satisfactory, and therefore identification of new targets is needed. We have previously shown that metuzumab inhibit tumor growth in vivo. The present study was performed to investigate the anti-tumor efficacy of metuzumab combined with gemcitabine and cisplatin (GP), paclitaxel and cisplatin (TP) or navelbine and cisplatin (NP) regimens in multiple NSCLC cell lines. Our results demonstrate that, in comparison to single agent metuzumab or GP treated cells, metuzumab combined with GP display inhibitory effects on tumor growth. Furthermore, we found that metuzumab elevated the sensitivity of cell lines to gemcitabine, which was identified by MTT assay. Flow cytometric analysis showed that metuzumab combined with gemcitabine (GEM) treatment led to an obvious G1 arrest and an elevated apoptosis in A549, NCI-H460 and NCI-H520 cells. Western blot analysis also demonstrated a significantly reduced level of cyclin D1, Bcl-2, and an obviously increase level of Bax and full-length caspase-3 in A549, NCI-H460 and NCI-H520 cells treated with metuzumab/gemcitabine combination in comparison with single agent treated cells. In addition, metuzumab/gemcitabine treated A549, NCI-H460 and NCI-H520 cells also demonstrated a significantly increase in deoxycytidine kinase (dCK) protein level compared with single agent metuzumab or gemcitabine treated cells. Xenograft models also demonstrated that this metuzumab/gemcitabine combination led to upregulation of dCK. Taken together, the mechanisms of metuzumab combined with GP repress tumor growth were that the combined treatment significantly inhibited the tumor cell proliferation, apoptosis and cell cycle in vitro and in vivo and at least partially by induction of dCK expression. Our results suggested that metuzumab could significantly enhance chemosensitivity of human NSCLC cells to gemcitabine. Metuzumab/gemcitabine combination treatment may be a potentially useful therapeutic regimen for NSCLC patients.
The Neural Code for Face Orientation in the Human Fusiform Face Area

Humans recognize faces and objects with high speed and accuracy regardless of their orientation. Recent studies have proposed that orientation invariance in face recognition involves an intermediate representation where neural responses are similar for mirror-symmetric views. Here, we used fMRI, multivariate pattern analysis, and computational modeling to investigate the neural encoding of faces and vehicles at different rotational angles. Corroborating previous studies, we demonstrate a representation of face orientation in the fusiform face-selective area (FFA). We go beyond these studies by showing that this representation is category-selective and tolerant to retinal translation. Critically, by controlling for low-level confounds, we found the representation of orientation in FFA to be compatible with a linear angle code. Aspects of mirror-symmetric coding cannot be ruled out when FFA mean activity levels are considered as a dimension of coding. Finally, we used a parametric family of computational models, involving a biased sampling of view-tuned neuronal clusters, to compare different face angle encoding models. The best fitting model exhibited a predominance of neuronal clusters tuned to frontal views of faces. In sum, our findings suggest a category-selective and monotonic code of face orientation in the human FFA, in line with primate electrophysiology studies that observed mirror-symmetric tuning of neural responses at higher stages of the visual system, beyond the putative homolog of human FFA.
Country of Origin as a Brand: The Case of New Zealand Lamb

New Zealand has used country-of-origin labeling (COOL) as a "country brand" to differentiate New Zealand lamb in international markets and increase consumer awareness of this lamb as a high-quality imported product. The case of New Zealand lamb is especially interesting as an unsubsidized commodity product competing against subsidized lamb in some of the most competitive and sophisticated retail markets in the world. Given New Zealand's dependence on international markets, producers, processors, and exporters needed to develop strategies to create and maintain a strong positive image for their product. This paper explores the history of New Zealand lamb exports, the focus on quality and meeting consumer specifications, and differences in the use and effectiveness of New Zealand as a country brand for lamb in different import markets. The paper also notes how COOL regulations might create country brands that increase demand for imported meats.