Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ERp57 as a novel cellular factor controlling prion protein biosynthesis: Therapeutic potential of protein disulfide isomerases

ABSTRACT Disturbance of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) proteostasis is observed in Prion-related disorders (PrDs). The protein disulfide isomerase ERp57 is a stress-responsive ER chaperone up-regulated in the brain of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease patients. However, the actual role of ERp57 in prion protein (PrP) biogenesis and the ER stress response remained poorly defined. We have recently addressed this question using gain- and loss-of-function approaches in vitro and animal models, observing that ERp57 regulates steady-state levels of PrP. Our results revealed that ERp57 modulates the biosynthesis and maturation of PrP but, surprisingly, does not contribute to the global cellular reaction against ER stress in neurons. Here we discuss the relevance of ERp57 as a possible therapeutic target in PrDs and other protein misfolding disorders.
Middle School Students' Perceptions of the Gender and Ethnic Gap in Achievement

This study used a mix-method approach to determine achievement gap in gender and ethnicity. Quantitative data was collected from the 2008-2009 Arkansas state Benchmark exam to investigate the extent of the gap in the school. Qualitative data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with 13 students. The students were asked to explain their perceptions of the gender and ethnicity gap in the school. The use of two methods for this study enabled the researcher to better understand the actual achievement gap that appeared at the school and compare this information to the information provided by the participants. The Quantitative data gathered in this study were analyzed with an analysis of variance (ANOVA), T-test, and Tukey’s multiple comparisons. Data gained in the interviews were analyzed using inductive analysis based on researcher created frames and domains. The quantitative data suggests that in this school when gender is considered females are still ahead in literacy and closing the gap in math. When considering ethnicity, Caucasians are scoring better in both math and literacy than Hispanics or Marshallese. The qualitative data hold that old stereotypes still persist in with these participants. The girls were believed to be better at reading and boys better at math. When participants were asked about ethnicity, the data revealed that these participants’ believed Caucasian students did the best in school, while Hispanic students do not do well or caused problems in school, and that participants’ choices of friends did not fall along racial lines but who might be the most useful to them. This Dissertation is approved for Recommendation to the Graduate Council Dissertation Director: ______________________________________ Dr. Michael Wavering Dissertation Committee: ______________________________________ Dr. Felicia Lincoln ______________________________________ Dr. Mounir Farah ______________________________________ Dr. Chris Lucas Dissertation Duplication Release I hereby authorize the University or Arkansas Libraries to duplicate this dissertation when needed for research and/or scholarship. Agreed _______________________________________________ Marian Hendrickson Refused _______________________________________________ Marian Hendrickson
Genetically‐associated variations in the development of reflex movements and synaptic junctions within an early reflex pathway of mouse spinal cord

The embryonic development of reflex forelimb movements produced by cutaneous stimulation of the forepaw was examined in five inbred strains of the house mouse, Mus musculus. A quantitative electron microscopic study of synapse formation between the neurons that comprise the spinal cutaneous reflex arc was also carried out on specimens from three of the strains subjected to reflex testing. This investigation provides evidence that there is significant genetically‐associated variability in the developmental timing of synapse formation within this disynaptic pathway and in the reflex behavior which it mediates. Specifically, it was found that C57BL/6J embryos had greater numbers of synaptic junctions in the reflex pathway at embryonic days 14–16, and they also showed reflex movements earlier than LP/J embryos. C57BL/6J embryos also showed a more rapid increase in the number of boutons during this embryonic period. CBA/CaJ embryos displayed a temporal pattern of development that differed from both C57BL/6J and LP/J. At E15, CBA/CaJ embryos were more similar to LP/J with regard to both reflex activity and synapse number, but by E16, CBA/CaJ values for both of these measures were more similar to C57BL/6J. On the basis of the data detailed in the text, we suggest that the strains differ in the following manner: C57BL/6J embryos develop boutons rapidly but appear to be relatively inefficient in the actual formation of synaptic junctions; CBA/CaJ embryos develop boutons at a slower rate than C57BL/6J but form synaptic junctions more efficiently; LP/J embryos develop boutons slowly and are also relatively inefficient in forming synaptic junctions. The genetic implications of — and some developmental processes which might be responsible for — the observed strain differences in the timing of synaptic development are discussed in the text.
Cosmic evolution of stellar quenching by AGN feedback: clues from the Horizon-AGN simulation

The observed massive end of the local galaxy stellar mass function is steeper than its predicted dark matter (DM) halo counterpart in the standard $\Lambda $CDM paradigm. We investigate how active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback can account for such a reduction in the stellar content of massive galaxies, through an influence on the gas content of their interstellar (ISM) and circum-galactic medium (CGM). We isolate the impact of AGNs by comparing two simulations from the HORIZON suite, which are identical except that one includes super massive black holes (SMBH) and related feedback. This allows us to cross-identify individual galaxies between these simulations and quantify the effect of AGN feedback on their properties, such as stellar mass and gas outflows. We find that the most massive galaxies ($ \rm M_{*} \geq 3 \times 10^{11} M_\odot $) are quenched to the extent that their stellar masses decrease by about 80% at $z=0$. More generally, SMBHs affect their host halo through a combination of outflows that reduce their baryonic mass, particularly for galaxies in the mass range $ \rm 10^9 M_\odot \leq M_{*} \leq 10^{11} M_\odot $, and a disruption of central gas inflows, which limits in-situ star formation, particularly massive galaxies with $ \rm M_{*} \approx10^{11} M_\odot $. As a result of these processes, net gas inflows onto massive galaxies drop by up to 70%. Finally, we measure a redshift evolution in the stellar mass ratio of twin galaxies with and without AGN feedback, with galaxies of a given stellar mass showing stronger signs of quenching earlier on. This evolution is driven by a progressive flattening of the $\rm M_{SMBH}-M_* $ relation for galaxies with $\rm M_{*} \leq 10^{10} M_\odot $ as redshift decreases, which translates into smaller SBMHs being harboured by galaxies of any fixed stellar mass, and indicates stronger AGN feedback at higher redshift.
Construction of a Full Transcription Map of Human Papillomavirus Type 18 during Productive Viral Infection

ABSTRACT Human papillomavirus type 18 (HPV18) is the second most common oncogenic HPV genotype, responsible for ∼15% of cervical cancers worldwide. In this study, we constructed a full HPV18 transcription map using HPV18-infected raft tissues derived from primary human vaginal or foreskin keratinocytes. By using 5′ rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE), we mapped two HPV18 transcription start sites (TSS) for early transcripts at nucleotide (nt) 55 and nt 102 and the HPV18 late TSS frequently at nt 811, 765, or 829 within the E7 open reading frame (ORF) of the virus genome. HPV18 polyadenylation cleavage sites for early and late transcripts were mapped to nt 4270 and mainly to nt 7299 or 7307, respectively, by using 3′ RACE. Although all early transcripts were cleaved exclusively at a single cleavage site, HPV18 late transcripts displayed the heterogeneity of 3′ ends, with multiple minor cleavage sites for late RNA polyadenylation. HPV18 splice sites/splice junctions for both early and late transcripts were identified by 5′ RACE and primer walking techniques. Five 5′ splice sites (donor sites) and six 3′ splice sites (acceptor sites) that are highly conserved in other papillomaviruses were identified in the HPV18 genome. HPV18 L1 mRNA translates a L1 protein of 507 amino acids (aa), smaller than the 568 aa residues previously predicted. Collectively, a full HPV18 transcription map constructed from this report will lead us to further understand HPV18 gene expression and virus oncogenesis.
Gender Role Attitudes and Women's Labor Market Participation: Opting-Out, AIDS and the President Appeal of Housewifery

After a century of remarkable growth, U.S. female labor force participation (FLP) has leveled-off in the late 1990s, despite continuous improvement in fundamental economic variables, such as educational attainment. Using data from the 1977-2006 General Social Surveys (GSS), this paper studies the impact of changing gender role attitudes on the evolution of FLP. The analysis uses a double prong instrumental variable strategy in the context of a variant of two-sample two-stage least squares (TS2LS). First, it appeals to extraneous attitudes found in the GSS, and second to an exogenous shock to attitudes, namely the AIDS scare, which may have acted as a counter-current to the ``Pill Revolution", using repeated cross-sectional data from the 1988-2006 National Health Interview Surveys (NHIS). Gender role attitudes, whose progression stalled in the mid-1990s when the AIDS crisis peaked, are found to explain at least a third of the recent leveling-off in FLP that is, as much as all the usual variables combined.
A Flexible Quality Framework for Use within Information Retrieval

Within recent years the volume of data readily available to the information consumer has dramatically increased in size. Although plentiful, this information is also of varying levels of quality, with providers ranging from multi-national corporations to specialist societies, and professional individuals to students with limited knowledge. As such, it is becoming increasingly difficult when searching for information to find precisely what is required. The two hurdles that prevent the finding of relevant information are therefore ‘information overload’ and ‘information quality’. Our proposed solution to this problem consists of the development of a methodology for using quality metrics as an aid to information searching. By providing the consumer with a facility for stating their information requirements in terms of quality, via a set of quality metrics with associated importance weightings, the precision of search results is significantly improved. This method also allows easy manipulation of the search criteria, as both the metric selection and importance weightings can be quickly and easily changed, giving each user the opportunity to experiment with the various quality metrics, and observe how different quality weightings affect the returned results.
Asymmetric Taxation Under Incremental and Sequential Investment

This article discusses the effects of an asymmetric tax scheme on incremental and sequential investment strategies. The tax base is equal to the firm’s return, net of an imputation rate. When the firm’s return is less than this rate, however, no tax refunds are allowed. This scheme is neutral under both income and capital uncertainty.
Emiliania huxleyi blooms in the Black Sea: influence of abiotic and biotic factors

Abstract Stelmakh L.V. , Gorbunova T.I. , 2018: Emiliania huxleyi blooms in the Black Sea: influence of abiotic and biotic factors. - Botanica, 24(2): 172-184. The studies were conducted in the Black Sea in deep and shallow water areas in October 2010 and May 2013. The main abiotic and biotic factors, which control spring and autumn coccolithophorid Emiliania huxleyi blooms, were identified. During late May this phenomenon was observed under optimal light and temperature conditions, and also optimal ratio between mineral forms of nitrogen and phosphorus (N/P) in the water. Biotic variables (the net growth rate of phytoplankton and relative dinoflagellates share in its total biomass) determined the uneven distribution of E. huxleyi within a bloom. In October, water temperature was almost 4ºС lower compared to that in May, and solar radiation intensity decreased approximately by 2-3 times. However, as a result of seasonal adaptation to light and temperature, E. huxleyi abundance reached blooming level. In that period, the variability of N/P ratio in the water and the relative share of diatoms in total biomass of phytoplankton played a major role in the uneven distribution of this coccolithophorid within the studied area. In the areas with low water salinity, a bloom was not developing. Within the main part of the studied water area, the major source of nitrogen was ammonium, which was favourable for the growth of E. huxleyi and dinoflagellates, but limited the growth of diatoms.
Troponin T measurement after myocardial infarction can identify left ventricular ejection of less than 40%

Aim To determine whether measurement of serum troponin T concentration after first acute myocardial infarction can be used to identify patients with a left ventricular ejection fraction of < 40%, who have an adverse prognosis. Methods Troponin T concentration was measured, and coronary and left ventriculography performed in 50 consecutive patients with acute myocardial infarction. Angiographic left ventricular ejection fraction was compared with serum troponin T concentration. Patients with previous myocardial infarction were excluded. Results There was a strong negative correlation between left ventricular ejection fraction and troponin T concentration. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (corrected for ties) was −0.72 (95% confidence intervals (CI) −0.55 to −0.83; p < 0.0001). Analysis by receiver operator characteristic curve produced an area under the curve of 0.9773 (95% CI 0.9409 to 1.0136). A troponin T concentration of > 2.8 μg/l predicted a left ventricular ejection fraction of < 40% with a sensitivity of 100% (CI 84.6 to 100.0) and specificity of 92.9% (CI 76.5 to 99.1). Exclusion of patients who did not receive thrombolytic treatment did not significantly affect the results. Conclusion Serum troponin T concentration measured 12–48 hours after admission for first myocardial infarction is a reliable, simple, quick, inexpensive, non-invasive method for identifying patients with a left ventricular ejection fraction of < 40% for whom there is a poor prognosis.
STUDY OF NEWER INVASIVE AND NON-INVASIVE METHODS OF HAEMOGLOBIN ESTIMATION IN BLOOD DONOR SCREENING - A STUDY ON 200 DONORS

Background: Despite the wide range of methods available for measurement of haemoglobin (Hb), no single technique has emerged as the most appropriate and ideal for a blood donation setup. To cater to this need both invasive and non-invasive techniques of haemoglobin estimation were analysed. Aims and Objectives: To compare invasive and non-invasive methods of haemoglobin estimation in terms of accuracy, sensitivity and donor satisfaction. Materials and Methods: A prospective study utilizing 200 blood samples was carried out in a blood donation setting for quality evaluation of five methods of haemoglobin estimation: Haematology cell analyser (reference), DiaSpect, CuSO4, HemoCue and NBM-200. Results: Mean value of HemoCue (mean ± SD = 13.8 ± 1.7 g/dl) was higher by 0.26 compared to reference (mean ± SD = 13.54 ± 1.52 g/dl). DiaSpect proved to be the best technique (sensitivity 99.4%, specificity 94.4% and likelihood ratio 17.75). CuSO4 proved to be good with Negative Predictive Value close to 91.4%. NBM-200 shows wide variation but the mean of the difference being statistically not significant. Conclusion: CuSO4 method gives accurate results, if strict quality control is applied. HemoCue and DiaSpect are too expensive to be used as a primary screening method in an economically restricted country like India, but are accurate. NBM-200 is a non-invasive method and gives good result with better compliance and donor satisfaction.
Detailed Measurement Study of Spatial Similarity in Spectrum Use in Dense Urban Environments

We present a detailed analysis of spectrum use and radio environment dynamics based on extensive measurement campaigns in the two European metropolitan areas of Paris and London. Our focus is twofold. First, for the Paris case we focus on frequency bands assigned to cellular systems. In particular, we present extensive cross-correlational analyses describing the complex interdependencies in spectrum use between the various bands, together with their spatial correlation structures. Our results show that there are strong correlations in many instances, but these are not present in all regions and for all technologies. Second, we focus on characterizing the variability in spectrum use using novel methodology going beyond the classical spatial correlation analysis. For this, we carry out detailed measurements over different areas of London, using both moving measurement platforms as well as a stationary reference. The utilized measurement approach allows us to study the scales of variation in an area, which are important for secondary access systems and cognitive network types of deployments that have to understand and exploit those. Such deployments depend on various boundary conditions on the radio dynamics. Our major methodological contribution is that we do not only use a local average with the simplest spatial dependency measure (linear correlation), but we retain all the data and quantify spatial similarly using distribution-wide metrics. This approach also allows us to question how much information can indeed be shared from relay nodes or single nodes measurements that try to capture dynamics of larger operating regions.
A Cooperative Video Streaming System over the Integrated Cellular and DSRC Networks

Due to the advance of wireless and mobile technologies, vehicular networks are widely discussed in recent years. When a vehicle requests a video stream from the Internet using the cellular network, i.e., 3G or 3.5G network, it may not have enough bandwidth to receive good quality of video. In order to resolve this problem, the vehicle can ask neighboring vehicles for the help of downloading the video stream. This scenario is called cooperative streaming in vehicular communications. The vehicle can communicate with neighboring vehicles using a short-range wireless technique, e.g., Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC). Since the topology of vehicle networks changes rapidly, two critical issues in the moving vehicle-based cooperative streaming are (1) how to form a cooperative group dynamically and (2) how to schedule neighboring vehicles to help the video downloading process. The simulation results reveal that the improvement of video quality is proportional to (1) high traffic flow, (2) high probability of willingness to share bandwidth and (3) low relative speed.
Cultural distance, innovation and export performance: An examination of perceived and objective cultural distance

Purpose This paper aims to examine the relationship between cultural distance (both perceived and objective), innovation and firm export performance. Design/methodology/approach Hypotheses were tested here by structural equation modeling using data from 186 export ventures into 23 international markets by Swedish companies. Findings The results indicate that managers’ perceptions of substantial cultural differences as well as objective cultural differences (gauged using Hofstede’s (1980, 2001) scores for dimensions of national culture) and subsequent environmental uncertainty when expanding into culturally distant markets triggers strategies for interacting and integrating with the market environment. These include producing and adopting innovations to processes and products and to organizational strategy, structure and administrative procedures to cope with the new environment and overcome uncertainties. These innovations and the associated competitive advantages improve firm export performance. Originality/value Despite much research into the relationship between firm internationalization and innovation, little attention has been paid to the effect of the characteristics of the foreign markets (specifically cultural differences) on firm innovation strategies. Moreover, much research has been devoted to the effect of innovation on firm export performance, but such research has mainly focused on one type of innovation, i.e. technological innovation, while the influence of organizational innovation on firm export performance has been basically ignored. The present study validates the explanatory of cultural distance (both perceived and objective) in relation to innovation strategies (technological and organizational) and export performance.
A theory of wage setting behavior

Concerns for fairness, workers' morale and reciprocity influence firms' wage setting policy. In this paper we formalize a theory of wage setting behavior in a simple and tractable model that explicitly considers these behavioral aspects. A worker is assumed to have reference-dependent preferences and displays loss aversion when evaluating the fairness of a wage contract. The theory establishes a wage-effort relationship that captures the worker's reference-dependent reciprocity, which in turn influences the firm's optimal wage policy. The paper makes two key contributions: it identifies loss aversion as an explanation for a worker's asymmetric reciprocity; and it provides realistic and generalized microfoundation for downward wage rigidity. We further illustrate the implications of our theory for both wage setting and hiring behavior. Downward wage rigidity generates several implications for the outcome of the initial employment contract. The worker's reference wage, his extent of negative reciprocity and the firmsAƒAE'A‚Â¢AƒÂ¢A¢â‚¬AiA‚Â¬AƒÂ¢A¢â‚¬A¾A‚Â¢ expectations are key drivers of the propositions derived.
Assessment of caries experience, enamel defects and selected salivary biomarkers in children with nutritional rickets

Background: Nutritional Rickets is a condition produced by an absence of Vitamin D, calcium or phosphate. It clues to relaxing and fading of the bones. Dental expression of children with rickets contains enamel hypoplasia and delayed tooth eruption. This study was conducted in order to assess caries experience (dmfs) and enamel defects among study and control groups, and to evaluate and compare the levels of selected salivary biomarkers between children with nutritional rickets and apparently healthy children. Material and methods: Assessment of caries according to WHO in 1987, and assessment of enamel defects according to enamel defect index EDI of WHO in 1997. In addition a stimulated saliva samples were collected according to Palone et al from 30 children diagnosed with nutritional rickets and 30 control children as control group. Salivary vitamin D, calcium, phosphate and alkaline phosphtase were analyzed. Results: Caries experience represented by dmfs was significantly higher among control group compared to study group, while enamel hypoplasia was higher in study group than control group. Salivary inorganic component (Ca, PO4 ALP) revealed obvious variations between study and control group. Salivary vitamin D concentration was lower in study group compared with control group. Conclusion: Based on the results, it can be concluded that nutritional rickets impact on certain salivary biomarkers which can be considered for evaluating the diagnosis and prognosis of caries experience and enamel defects in nutritional rickets children