Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Re: "Biased tests of association: comparisons of allele frequencies when departing from Hardy-Weinberg proportions".

In a recent article on the e (to be defined in the second paragraph), Schaid and Jacobsen (1) investigated how deviation from Hardy-Weinberg (HW) proportions at marker loci would change e. In particular, they proposed a correction method for an inflated e when there is an excess of homozygotes relative to the HW expectations that may arise in stratified populations. We show that their correction (1) is accurate when the population stratification involves marker allele frequencies only. However, when the population stratification involves frequencies of both markers and diseases (plausible), their correction method will not work. As reported previously (2—4), inflated type one error (e) is a serious concern for case-control association studies on candidate genes with complex diseases, especially under population stratification. We perform simulations to address the problem and provide an explanation for the failure of their correction. In simulations, stratification in a population P is caused by admixture of two differentiated populations, PI and P2. A proportion k of the population P comes from PI and the rest from P2. In the PI and P2 populations, Hardy-Weienberg equilibrium (HWE) holds at the marker locus with two alleles, M and m. The M frequency in PI i s / , and in P2 is/2 . The disease prevalences are, respectively, <{>, in PI and §2 in P2. The disease and the marker locus are independent in the PI and P2 populations. Two simulations are performed. For the first one, <{>, = <f>2 = 0.1; for the second one, <(>, = 0.1 and fo = 0.2. Other simulation parameters are the same: k = 0.5,/, = 0.01, and/2 takes a series of values from 0.05 to 0.95 with an increment of 0.1. In the population P, the fraction of maximum discrepancies (defined in ref. 1) from HWE is
Extent Of Director Involvement In The Strategic Management Process: Does Occupational Background Make A Difference?

Propositions were tested with original survey data from 224 directors from nineteen hospitals to determine the extent of their involvement in the strategic management process. In most areas, board members whose occupational background is in health care tend to be less engaged than their counterparts whose background is not in health care. Significant differences were observed with respect to broad cross-functional strategic issues and overall hospital performance. Both groups had limited involvement in setting standards for rewarding top management and evaluating their performance. The results raise potentially important strategic and ethical dilemmas for hospitals and offer proponents of changes in board composition support for their normative suggestions.
Customer value in restaurants in Port Elizabeth: what customers experience and what managers perceive

Delivering value for customers has become a central theme in restaurants. The paper examines customer value from two perspectives, i.e. that of restaurant management and that of the customer. The questionnaires were based on the DINESERV model (developed by Stevens, Knutson & Patton, 1995). A total 207 managers and 400 customers responded to the survey. A descriptive quantitative study design was followed and a systematic sampling method was used to select respondents. The empirical results show that on a 5 point Likert scale, the overall mean score for customer experiences was 4.10 whilst the overall mean score for managers‟ perceptions was 4.20 giving an overall DINESERV gap of -0.10. Overall, customers‟ experiences of customer value fell below managers‟ perceptions of customer value. These results suggest there is a need to align management and customer perspectives to optimize customer value as delivered and experienced. Specifically, restaurants should improve the food and beverage knowledge of frontline staff, particularly waiters.
The Architecture of a Software System for Supporting Community-based Primary Health Care with Mobile Technology: The Mobile Technology for Community Health (MoTeCH) Initiative in Ghana

This paper describes the software architecture of a system designed in response to the health development potential of two concomitant trends in poor countries: i) The rapid expansion of community health worker deployment, now estimated to involve over a million workers in Africa and Asia, and ii) the global proliferation of mobile technology coverage and use. Known as the Mobile Technology for Community Health (MoTeCH) Initiative, our system adapts and integrates existing software applications for mobile data collection, electronic medical records, and interactive voice response to bridge health information gaps in rural Africa. MoTeCH calculates the upcoming schedule of care for each client and, when care is due, notifies the client and community health workers responsible for that client. MoTeCH also automates the aggregation of health status and health service delivery information for routine reports. The paper concludes with a summary of lessons learned and future system development needs.
Extremely High-Level and Rapid Transient Protein Production in Plants without the Use of Viral Replication1

Plant-based overexpression of heterologous proteins has attracted much interest and development in recent years. To date, the most efficient vectors have been based on RNA virus-derived replicons. A system based on a disabled version of cowpea mosaic virus RNA-2 has been developed, which overcomes limitations on insert size and introduces biocontainment. This system involves positioning a gene of interest between the 5′ leader sequence and 3′ untranslated region (UTR) of RNA-2, thereby emulating a presumably stable mRNA for efficient translation. Thus far, the sequence of the 5′ UTR has been preserved to maintain the ability of the modified RNA-2 to be replicated by RNA-1. However, high-level expression may be achieved in the absence of RNA-1-derived replication functions using Agrobacterium-mediated transient transformation. To investigate those features of the 5′ UTR necessary for efficient expression, we have addressed the role of two AUG codons found within the 5′ leader sequence upstream of the main initiation start site. Deletion of an in-frame start codon upstream of the main translation initiation site led to a massive increase in foreign protein accumulation. By 6 d postinfiltration, a number of unrelated proteins, including a full-size IgG and a self-assembling virus-like particle, were expressed to >10% and 20% of total extractable protein, respectively. Thus, this system provides an ideal vehicle for high-level expression that does not rely on viral replication of transcripts.
Managing environmental turbulence in the microfinance sector - a case study of the Aga Khan rural support programme in Pakistan

Microfinance is a powerful development tool with which to alleviate the problem of poverty through providing financial services to the poor. The real essence of all microfinance efforts around the world is to enable the poor to break the cycle of poverty by establishing and nourishing small businesses. The international donor community and governments have had substantial financial and non-financial investments in developing and providing subsidized financial services for the poor on the premise that they have limited access to the formal mainstream financial institutions. There was a drastic shift in the microfinance paradigm during the early 1990s when the donor community changed its thinking and approach as to the sustainability of microfinance institutions around the world. Instead of providing subsidized financial services to microfinance institutions (MFIs) for their life time, the donors started emphasizing self-sustainability on the part of MFIs through cost control, efficient operations, and adopting commercialism. The shift in the donors’ approach, in turn, resulted in competition among MFIs as they had to struggle for more and more clients to ensure their sustainability. These new issues came as external disturbances for the MFIs which were previously heavily dependent on the donors’ subsidized funding, and they had to adapt and reorient to the changed external conditions. This study is a case study based on the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) ─ one of the prominent microfinance institutions in Pakistan. It explores the internal 1 The term ‘international donor community’, referred to as ‘donors’, ‘donor community’, or ‘donor agencies’ in the thesis, connotes international sources of subsidized funding for the poor. This includes bilateral and multi-lateral financial organizations such as the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), The World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), among others.
A Cross-Country Comparison of the Determinants of Vocational Training

Using data from the European Labour Force Survey, the characteristics of individuals who receive vocational training is compared in six European countries; Germany, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and the UK. As well as the incidence of training, the intensity is also considered. In addition, training is split into its on-the-job and off-the-job components. The spectrum of training within these six countries runs from Germany at one end, where most training is the intensive upskilling of young, unqualified workers, to Sweden at the other end, where the typical training spell is of short duration and is given to middle-aged, well-educated employees in professional jobs. Thus the pattern of training is largely determined by a country''s system of education. In Germany, vocational skills are not taught within the formal education sector, and are learned through participation on an apprenticeship scheme, while in Sweden, students do learn vocational skills at school, and so the workplace training we observe is mainly ''top-up'' courses.
Visual Physiology of the Antarctic Amphipod Abyssorchomene plebs

Although the visual systems of animals living in the cold, dark water of the deep sea have been investigated for some time, little is known about vision in animals inhabiting polar oceans, where temperatures are even colder and irradiance fluctuates dramatically with ice cover and season. Physiology of the compound eye of the amphipod Abyssorchomene plebs (Gammaridea: Lysianassoidea), a common Antarctic benthic scavenger, was studied electrophysiologically by electroretinography. A. plebs has a monochromatic visual system with a spectral sensitivity maximum at 487 nm, and higher sensitivity at ultraviolet wavelengths than predicted by a visual pigment template. While irradiance sensitivity determined from V/log I curves is comparable to that of mesopelagic crustaceans, temporal resolution calculated from response waveform dynamics and as determined by critical flicker fusion frequency suggest that the A. plebs eye is slower than that of crustaceans from the deep sea. A. plebs photoreceptors are physiologically adapted for a slow lifestyle in a low-light environment, where maximizing photon capture occurs at the expense of detecting fast events in the visual scene.
Laparoscopic Versus Abdominal Approach to Endometrial Cancer: A 10-Year Retrospective Multicenter Analysis

Objective The objective of this study was to give a reality-based picture of the use of laparoscopic surgery for staging endometrial cancer patients out of the experimental setting. Methods Consecutive data of patients with endometrial cancer who underwent laparoscopic or abdominal surgical staging in 6 Italian centers were recorded. Baseline patients and tumors characteristics, surgery performed, and safety data were collected and analyzed. Results A total of 1012 subjects (403 and 609 treated by laparoscopy and laparotomy, respectively) who received surgical stadiation for endometrial cancer were included in the final analysis. The laparoscopic approach to endometrial cancer was more commonly performed in younger and nonobese patients who had received less previous surgeries, whereas the abdominal approach was preferred for the advanced stages and rare histotypes. Irrespectively to stage, the operative time was higher for the laparoscopy than laparotomy, whereas blood loss and postoperative complications were lower in the laparoscopy group than in the laparotomy group. No difference between surgical approaches was observed in complication rates in stage I endometrial cancers, whereas they were worst in higher stages. The site, but not the incidence, of recurrences differed only for advanced stage endometrial cancers. No differences in overall, disease-free, and cancer-related survival rates were also observed. Conclusions In the clinical practice, heterogeneous criteria are adopted to recur to laparoscopy for staging endometrial cancer. The safety and the feasibility of the laparoscopy are confirmed for stage I endometrial cancers, whereas they appear suboptimal for the advanced stages.
Visualizing the flow of evidence in network meta‐analysis and characterizing mixed treatment comparisons

Network meta‐analysis techniques allow for pooling evidence from different studies with only partially overlapping designs for getting a broader basis for decision support. The results are network‐based effect estimates that take indirect evidence into account for all pairs of treatments. The results critically depend on homogeneity and consistency assumptions, which are sometimes difficult to investigate. To support such evaluation, we propose a display of the flow of evidence and introduce new measures that characterize the structure of a mixed treatment comparison. Specifically, a linear fixed effects model for network meta‐analysis is considered, where the network estimates for two treatments are linear combinations of direct effect estimates comparing these or other treatments. The linear coefficients can be seen as the generalization of weights known from classical meta‐analysis. We summarize properties of these coefficients and display them as a weighted directed acyclic graph, representing the flow of evidence. Furthermore, measures are introduced that quantify the direct evidence proportion, the mean path length, and the minimal parallelism of mixed treatment comparisons. The graphical display and the measures are illustrated for two published network meta‐analyses. In these applications, the proposed methods are seen to render transparent the process of data pooling in mixed treatment comparisons. They can be expected to be more generally useful for guiding and facilitating the validity assessment in network meta‐analysis. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Changes in auditory P300 with clinical remission in schizophrenia: Effects of facial‐affect stimuli

Abstract The auditory P300 is affected by arousal and emotion. We examined the effect of drawings expressing sadness or pleasure on auditory event‐related potentials (ERP) during recovery from schizophrenia. Oddball‐paradigm auditory ERP were recorded while presenting one of these drawings to nine patients with paranoid schizophrenia and seven patients with other types of schizophrenia during the acute stage and again during remission. P300 parameters (amplitude, area, and latency), reaction time, and symptom scores were evaluated. P300 amplitude and area were significantly greater in the recovery than in the acute phase. Increases were larger when viewing drawings that expressed sadness than when viewing drawings that expressed pleasure. In paranoid‐type patients, P300 when viewing pleasurable drawings was similar to that when viewing sad drawings during the acute phase; in remission, P300 was significantly larger when viewing sad drawings than when viewing pleasurable drawings. In non‐paranoid patients, P300 while viewing pleasurable drawings was significantly larger than that while viewing sad drawings during the acute phase; this difference disappeared during recovery. P300 latency and reaction time were not influenced by facial‐affect stimuli or recovery. A significant negative correlation was noted between amplitude and negative symptom scores. P300 amplitude and area may be useful state markers during recovery in schizophrenic patients. Effects involving attention resources and emotional arousal are also involved.
Fire Sale Discount: Evidence from the Sale of Minority Equity Stakes

Most empirical studies estimate the impact of fire sales either without the benefit of market prices from frequent trades, as with aircraft sales, or without observing transaction prices, as with the forced sales of equity securities by mutual funds facing outflows. We observe both by studying firms’ sales of minority equity stakes in publicly listed third parties. We estimate the distressed sale discount to be about 8% while controlling for liquidity and for industry, or about double the 4% estimated for equity sales by distressed mutual funds. The discount becomes 13–14% if the stake sold is more than 5% of the firm or is sold as a block. Prices recover after distressed sales.
Occurrence of the siphonophore Muggiaea atlantica in Scottish coastal waters: source or sink?

We applied the concept of source–sink dynamics to investigate a recent (1999–2013) increase in the occurrence of the siphonophore Muggiaea atlantica in Scottish coastal waters. Our aim was to determine whether this change represented the establishment of resident populations (i.e. “sources”), or transient populations reliant on immigration (i.e. “sinks”). First, we show that local production was not always sufficient to account for recruitment (a “source” prerequisite), suggesting reliance on immigration (a “sink” prerequisite). Using variation partitioning, we then discriminated between the exclusive effects of immigration [indexed by the European Slope Current (ESC)] and local production (indexed by local sea temperature and food availability). On the west coast (Loch Ewe), interannual variability in the species’ abundance was determined by, in order of increasing importance: (i) suitable local environmental conditions (13%); (ii) the role of the ESC in modulating these conditions (20%); and (iii) immigration via the ESC (29%). These results provided a strong indication that Loch Ewe represents a sink habitat for M. atlantica. However, on the east coast (Stonehaven) our results were less conclusive, probably due to the less direct influence of the ESC. For both locations, we suggest that low winter temperatures prevented overwintering, necessitating annual re-colonization via immigration.
Nitric oxide regulates prolidase activity by serine/threonine phosphorylation

Prolidase [E.C. 3.4. 13.9], a member of the matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) family, is a manganese‐dependent cytosolic exopeptidase that cleaves imidodipeptides containing C‐terminal proline or hydroxyproline. It plays an important role in collagen metabolism, matrix remodeling and cell growth. Nitric oxide (NO), a versatile signaling molecule, regulates many processes including collagen synthesis and matrix remodeling and, thereby, may modulate angiogenesis, tumor invasiveness, and metastasis. Thus, we considered that prolidase may be an important target of NO regulation. In our study, SIN I and DETA/NO were used as NO donors. Both donors increased prolidase activity in a time‐dependent and dose‐dependent manner. Prolidase activity increased not only with NO donors but also with endogenous NO in cells transfected with iNOS. The effect of iNOS was abolished by treatment with S‐methylisothiourea (SMT), a selective inhibitor of iNOS. However, with either exogenous or endogenous sources of NO, the increase in prolidase activity was not accompanied by increased prolidase expression. Therefore, we suspected phosphorylation of prolidase as a potential mechanism regulating enzyme activation. We observed increased serine/threonine phosphorylation on prolidase protein in cells treated with NO donors and in cells transfected with iNOS. To determinate the pathways that may mediate prolidase induction by NO, we first used 8‐Br‐cGMP, a cGMP agonist, and found that 8‐Br‐cGMP strongly and rapidly stimulated prolidase activity accompanied by increased phosphorylation. Rp‐8‐Br‐pCPT‐cGMP, an inhibitor of cGMP, reduced NO donor‐stimulated prolidase activity to control levels. To test wheher the MAPK pathway is involved in this NO‐dependent activation, we used an ERK1/2 inhibitor and found that it had no effect on prolidase activity increased by NO donors. These results demonstrate that NO stimulates prolidase activity by increasing serine/threonine phosphorylation through PKG‐cGMP pathway, but independent of MAPK and suggest an interaction between inflammatory signaling pathways and regulation of the terminal step of matrix degradation. J. Cell. Biochem. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Bladder pain syndrome: a review.

OBJECTIVE : Bladder pain syndrome (BPS), including the specific variant interstitial cystitis, is a chronic condition characterized by bladder, urethral, and pelvic pain; urinary urgency; and urinary frequency. Bladder pain syndrome poses many clinical challenges: (1) The diagnosis is one of exclusion and is often inappropriately assigned; (2) a wide-range spectrum of symptoms can be noted in the population from minimally affected to debilitated; and (3) the etiology for the disease is unknown, which has made the development of directed therapies problematic. The objective of this article was to review the current theories of etiology of BPS and the diagnosis of BPS and understand treatment options including surgical, complementary, and pharmaceutical.
Does Corporate Governance affect Earnings Quality: Evidence from an Emerging Market

This study examines whether firm governance practices have an effect on accounting earnings quality in Bangladesh. Using a sample of 648 firm-year observations for the period of 2001 - 2006, the result suggests that corporate governance mechanisms provide greater monitoring of financial reporting and these mechanisms positively affect firm earnings quality. This knowledge could be used by the capital market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to design mechanisms to constrain managers’ earnings management practices. This, in turn, would contribute towards development of an efficient stock market and thus protect investors’ interests.
Acridine Orange/exosomes increase the delivery and the effectiveness of Acridine Orange in human melanoma cells: A new prototype for theranostics of tumors

Abstract Specifically targeted drug delivery systems with low immunogenicity and toxicity are deemed to increase efficacy of cancer chemotherapy. Acridine Orange (AO) is an acidophilic dye with a strong tumoricidal action following excitation with a light source at 466 nm. However, to date the clinical use of AO is limited by the potential side effects elicited by systemic administration. The endogenous nanocarrier exosomes have been recently introduced as a natural delivery system for therapeutic molecules. In this article, we show the outcome of the administration to human melanoma cells of AO charged Exosomes (Exo-AO), in both monolayer and spheroid models. The results showed an extended drug delivery time of Exo-AO to melanoma cells as compared to the free AO, improving the cytotoxicity of AO. This study shows that Exo-AO have a great potential for a real exploitation as a new theranostic approach against tumors based on AO delivered through the exosomes.