Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inhibition of mitochondrial-specific protein symthesis in human lymphocytes and platelets is dependent upon the stage of cellular differentiation.

Small lymphocytes differentiate into functionally active blast cells in vitro upon stimulation with such mitogens as phytohemagglutinin and sodium periodate. If stimulated lymphocytes are subsequently treated with the nucleic acid intercalating dye ethidium bromide, electron-dense complexes containing nucleic acid are formed in mitochondria, protein synthesis in mitochondria is inhibited, and lymphoblast division ceases. Formation of complexes and the development of morphologically abnormal mitochondria provide ultrastructural evidence of mitochondrial protein inhibition and serve as markers for mitogen-responsive lymphocytes. The formation of these abnormalities in all mitochondria of treated megakaryocytes and 22% of mitochondria in platelets indicates that platelets contain functional nucleic acid and that the induced structural changes may be occurring in a less-differentiated (i.e., younger) subpopulation of circulating platelets.
The xenoestrogens biphenol‐A and nonylphenol differentially regulate metalloprotease‐mediated shedding of EGFR ligands

The xenoestrogens bisphenol‐A (BPA) and nonylphenol (NP) are endocrine disruptors used in the plastic polymer industry to manufacture different products for human use. Previous studies have suggested a role of these compounds in the shedding of signaling molecules, such as tumor necrosis factor α (TNF‐α). The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of BPA and NP on the sheddase ADAM17 and its newly discovered regulators iRhom1 and iRhom2 in the release of EGFR‐ligands. We report that BPA and NP can stimulate the release of the ADAM17‐substrates HB‐EGF and TGF‐α. In cells lacking ADAM17 (Adam17−/− mEFs) BPA‐stimulated release of HB‐EGF, but not TGF‐α, was strongly reduced, whereas NP‐stimulated shedding of HB‐EGF and TGF‐α was completely abolished. Inactivation of both ADAM17 and the related ADAM10 (Adam10/17−/− mEFs) completely prevented the release of these substrates. In the absence of iRhom1, BPA‐ or NP‐stimulated release of HB‐EGF or TGF‐α was comparable to wild‐type control mEFs, conversely the BPA‐induced release of HB‐EGF was abolished in iRhom2−/− mEFs. The defect in shedding of HB‐EGF in iRhom2−/− mEF cells could be rescued by overexpressing iRhom2. Interestingly, the NP‐stimulated release of HB‐EGF was not affected by the absence of iRhom2, suggesting that NP could potentially activate both ADAM10 and ADAM17. We tested this hypothesis using betacellulin (BTC), an EGFR‐ligand that is a substrate for ADAM10. We found that NP, but not BPA stimulated the release of BTC in Adam17−/−, iRhom2−/−, or iRhom1/2−/−, but not in Adam10/17−/− cells. Taken together, our results suggest that BPA and NP stimulate the release of EGFR‐ligands by differentially activating ADAM17 or ADAM10. The identification of specific effects of these endocrine disruptors on ADAM10 and ADAM17 will help to provide a better understanding of their roles in cell signaling and proinflammatory processes, and provide new potential targets for treatment of reproductive or inflammatory diseases such as asthma or breast cancer that are promoted by xenoestrogens.
CXCR4/SDF-1 axis is involved in lymph node metastasis of gastric carcinoma.

AIM To investigate the role of CXC chemokine receptor-4 (CXCR4) and stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF-1) in lymph node metastasis of gastric carcinoma. METHODS In 40 cases of gastric cancer, expression of CXCR4 mRNA in cancer and normal mucous membrane and SDF-1 mRNA in lymph nodes around the stomach was detected using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) (TaqMan) and immunohistochemistry assay. SGC-7901 and MGC80-3 cancer cells were used to investigate the effect of SDF-1 on cell proliferation and migration. RESULTS Quantitative reverse transcription PCR and immunohistochemistry revealed that the expression level of CXCR4 in gastric cancer was significantly higher than that in normal mucous membrane (1.6244 ± 1.3801 vs 1.0715 ± 0.5243, P < 0.05). The expression level of CXCR4 mRNA in gastric cancer with lymph node metastasis was also significantly higher than that without lymph node metastasis (0.823 ± 0.551 vs 0.392 ± 0.338, P < 0.05). CXCR4 expression was significantly related to poorly differentiated, high tumor stage and lymph node metastasis. Significant differences in the expression level of SDF-1 mRNA were found between lymph nodes in metastatic gastric cancer and normal nodes (0.5432 ± 0.4907 vs 0.2640 ± 0.2601, P < 0.05). The positive expression of SDF-1 mRNA in lymph nodes of metastatic gastric cancer was consistent with the positive expression of CXCR4 mRNA in gastric cancer (r = 0.776, P < 0.01). Additionally, human gastric cancer cell lines expressed CXCR4 and showed vigorous proliferation and migratory responses to SDF-1. AMD3100 (a specific CXCR4 antagonist) was also found to effectively reduce the migration of gastric cancer cells. CONCLUSION The CXCR4/SDF-1 axis is involved in the lymph node metastasis of gastric cancer. CXCR4 is considered as a potential therapeutic target in the treatment of gastric cancer.
Corporate sustainability disclosure and market valuation in a Middle Eastern Nation: evidence from listed firms on the Tehran Stock Exchange: sensitive industries versus non-sensitive industries

Abstract This article has received the considerable critical attention that seeking to enhance sustainability disclosure may essentially make progress firms’ market valuation. It aims to provide the corporate sustainability disclosure level organized according to the ‘7 + 1’, seven core subjects of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 26000 and the energy disclosure items, then set out to assess the effectiveness of sustainability reporting on the listed firms’ market valuation during the period 2010–2015. To achieve this objective, data were collected from a sample of 98 Iranian manufacturing and service organizations from various industry sectors at the Tehran Stock Exchange and generalized method of moments (GMM) approach was conducted for a dynamic panel data to evaluate the effect of the sustainability reporting level on the listed firms’ market valuation. As can be seen from the results, the overall extent of sustainability disclosure arranged in accordance with the low rate of sustainability reporting for listed firms in TSE. It was also found that the sensitive firms have a greater level of corporate sustainability disclosure than the other firms. Moreover, sustainability reporting has been shown to be related to market valuations in which firms activating in sensitive industries environmentally with sustainability reporting had higher market valuations than firms activating in non-sensitive industries with sustainability reporting. Our ‘7 + 1’ sustainability disclosure practice aspects all together with their basic measurement items can be applied as a checklist for assessing how well sustainability disclosure practices are performed at TSE.
The Role of Service Quality and Institutional Image in Establishing Relational Commitment between Private Universities and the Student

For service organization, relational commitment and outcomes have been essential for long-term relational successful. This study is purposed to identify the impact of institutional image, service quality, students’ trust on the students’ relational commitment in private higher education institutions in Central Java, Indonesia. To examine the relationship of trust on relational commitment, some relevant variables of service quality and institutional image were studied along with the central role of mediating variable of trust. By using a two-step approach, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test the proposed model. The sample used in this study is 500 respondents. It was taken by applying proportional random sampling. There are several findings from this study. There is a significant and positive influence between service quality and students’ trust. There is a significant and positive influence between institutional image and students’ trust. The result also shows that there is a significant and positive influence between service quality and students’ relational commitment. There is a significant and positive influence between institutional image and students’ relational commitment. Finally, there is also a significant and positive influence between students’ trust towards students’ relational commitment. In the last part, managerial implications were widely discussed.
Position-dependent correlations between DNA methylation and the evolutionary rates of mammalian coding exons

DNA cytosine methylation is a central epigenetic marker that is usually mutagenic and may increase the level of sequence divergence. However, methylated genes have been reported to evolve more slowly than unmethylated genes. Hence, there is a controversy on whether DNA methylation is correlated with increased or decreased protein evolutionary rates. We hypothesize that this controversy has resulted from the differential correlations between DNA methylation and the evolutionary rates of coding exons in different genic positions. To test this hypothesis, we compare human–mouse and human–macaque exonic evolutionary rates against experimentally determined single-base resolution DNA methylation data derived from multiple human cell types. We show that DNA methylation is significantly related to within-gene variations in evolutionary rates. First, DNA methylation level is more strongly correlated with C-to-T mutations at CpG dinucleotides in the first coding exons than in the internal and last exons, although it is positively correlated with the synonymous substitution rate in all exon positions. Second, for the first exons, DNA methylation level is negatively correlated with exonic expression level, but positively correlated with both nonsynonymous substitution rate and the sample specificity of DNA methylation level. For the internal and last exons, however, we observe the opposite correlations. Our results imply that DNA methylation level is differentially correlated with the biological (and evolutionary) features of coding exons in different genic positions. The first exons appear more prone to the mutagenic effects, whereas the other exons are more influenced by the regulatory effects of DNA methylation.
Economic Development in Indonesia: Integrated Model of Islamic Financial Inclusion

The purpose of this paper is to examine the importance of cooperation between government institutions, financial institutions and non-profit organisations in order to succeed at the financial inclusion agenda. The qualitative and descriptive approach with library research was used as the methodology. Within the spirit of Islamic economic development, the authors have proposed a new model called: The Integrated Model of Islamic Financial Inclusion. The model provides a whole new concept about realising inclusive development: progrowth, pro-job, pro-poor, and pro-environment. The implementation of this model is expected to overcome poverty and inequality problems in Indonesia, so that economic growth
Classically Conditioned Changes of Blood Glucose Level

&NA; This paper reviews the literature dealing with classically conditioned changes of blood glucose level. When conditioning procedures are employed, the repeated administration of large amounts of insulin, or of glucose, leads to a conditioned decrease of blood glucose whereas the repeated administration of smaller amounts of insulin leads to a conditioned increase of glucose. These responses are interpreted as instances of reflex compensation by the central nervous system for rapid alterations of glucose availability. Instances of more naturally occurring changes of glucose levels, which appear to be under the control of the nervous system and to be conditionable, are also discussed. A model that accounts for the observed responses has been formulated and is presented.
Analysis of chest x-ray and clinical finding in children with pneumonia

Background and objective: The objectives of the study research were to determine the relationship between clinical and chest X-ray findings of pediatric patients. Methods: A Prospective clinical study carried out at Raparin hospital in Erbil city, Iraq. A sample of 356 children admitted between Decembers 2004 and June 2005 from emergency ward and inwards in Raparin hospital were collected with age range from 2 months to 10 years with mean age of 19 months. All children had chest radiography on the bases of clinical decision by pediatricians. Descriptive and statistical procedures were used to analyze the data. Results: All children had signs and symptoms of respiratory infections for instance, fever (87.4%), shortness of breath (99.5 %),cough (98%), tachypnea (73.5%), wheezes (93.3% ), chest retraction (80%), crepitations (82%) and, 42.4% of chest X-rays showed focal infiltrations. Three clinical parameters related to pneumonia diagnosed by chest X-ray these were, chest retraction with sensitivity of 80%, and specificity of 88.29%), tachypnea with sensitivity of 73.5% and specificity of 56.59% fever with sensitivity of 87.42% and specificity of 60.98%. Conclusion: Tachypnea, chest retraction and fever were found to be highly suggestive of pneumonia, chest x-rays was positive in about 425 of patients with pneumonia.
PRISM offers a comprehensive genomic approach to transcription factor function prediction

The human genome encodes 1500–2000 different transcription factors (TFs). ChIP-seq is revealing the global binding profiles of a fraction of TFs in a fraction of their biological contexts. These data show that the majority of TFs bind directly next to a large number of context-relevant target genes, that most binding is distal, and that binding is context specific. Because of the effort and cost involved, ChIP-seq is seldom used in search of novel TF function. Such exploration is instead done using expression perturbation and genetic screens. Here we propose a comprehensive computational framework for transcription factor function prediction. We curate 332 high-quality nonredundant TF binding motifs that represent all major DNA binding domains, and improve cross-species conserved binding site prediction to obtain 3.3 million conserved, mostly distal, binding site predictions. We combine these with 2.4 million facts about all human and mouse gene functions, in a novel statistical framework, in search of enrichments of particular motifs next to groups of target genes of particular functions. Rigorous parameter tuning and a harsh null are used to minimize false positives. Our novel PRISM (predicting regulatory information from single motifs) approach obtains 2543 TF function predictions in a large variety of contexts, at a false discovery rate of 16%. The predictions are highly enriched for validated TF roles, and 45 of 67 (67%) tested binding site regions in five different contexts act as enhancers in functionally matched cells.
Anastrozole versus megestrol acetate in the treatment of postmenopausal women with advanced breast carcinoma

This report presents the results of a survival update based on the combined data from two studies that compared the efficacy and tolerability of anastrozole (1 or 10 mg once daily), a selective, nonsteroidal aromatase inhibitor administered orally, and megestrol acetate (40 mg 4 times daily) in the treatment of postmenopausal women with advanced breast carcinoma whose disease had progressed after treatment with tamoxifen.
Profitability of Soybean Production by Small Holder Farmers in Nigeria, Impact of an Agricultural Programme Zamfara State Nigeria

The study assessed the costs and returns in soybean production among small -scale farmers an impact of the Zamfara comprehensive agricultural revolution progr am (ZACAREP) in the Zamfara state of Nigeria. The multi -stage sampling procedure was used to select 600 soybean fa rmers. Four Local Governments, namely: Bungudu, Mar u, Gusau, and Tsafe were purposively selected out of the fourt een local government areas of the state, because of their high concentration of soybean production. Respondents were then randomly selected from each of the local gove rnment, based on the proportion of each local government’s soybea n f rming population that provide data for the anal ysis Data were collected from the respondents through the administ ration of well -structured questionnaire. The data c ollected were analyzed using simple descriptive statistics, gross margin analysis. There was a significant difference between participation on cost; ( ₦66978.9) and a non-participation farmers ( ₦36,232.7), while the return indicated ₦146, 221.1 and ₦41,337.9. Due to technologies adoption, the partici pat ng farmers’ average yield was 1601 – 1800kg per h ctare and non-participating farmer was 1201 – 1400kg per hecta re. The major constraints were high cost and late su pply of inputs, lack of access to loan by women and few female exten sion agents. It is recommended that government shou ld; strengthened technology advocacy to increase farmer s participation in the programme. Empower farmers wit h the skills essential for agricultural activities and frequency of contact between extension staff and farmers shou ld be explored to make efficient and effective service delivery.
Upgrading or discount? The impact of sales frames on consumers’ relative preferences.

Using prior research into mental accounting and sales framing, the authors suggest that consumers confronted by price discount promotions likely integrate that discount into their purchasing cost account and consider it a reduced loss. In contrast, consumers confronted by an upgrading promotion should separate the promotion into another account, different from purchasing cost, and consider it a gain. The upgrading promotion thus should be more salient and attractive than the discount promotion. Three experiments examine this proposition: Experiments 1 and 2 show that participants prefer upgrading to discount promotions, mainly due to the different promotion assignments. Experiment 3 uses a between-subjects design, different task scenario, and different promotional level to confirm the robustness of the propositions. This study thus offers key theoretical and practical implications.
The influence of organizational task environment and firm size on top-executive compensation contracts

This paper offers a fresh perspective on executive compensation by offering a new paradigm for choosing executive compensation structure based on environmental factors and firm size. This new perspective uses agency theory as a theoretical foundation. The availability of information, primarily information related to the agent, has typically been of utmost concern in the compensation selection process. However, a predominant focus on cognitive or behavioral information of the agent neglects the relative importance and impact of environmental forces in this process. This study evaluates the composition of the compensation contract using fluctuating environmental dimensions as the primary determinant. Specifically, we examine environmental munificence, dynamism, and complexity and the influence of varying levels of each of these variables and their interaction on the optimal choice of compensation contract utilized for both large firms and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This externally focused view of compensation contract creation underscores the significance of environmental factors in determining contract selection while also acknowledging the necessity of principals utilizing information related to both the agent and the environment. Furthermore, we argue that top executive compensation structures for large organizations and non-adaptive SMEs should differ from those of adaptive SMEs.
Who Carries the Burden of Reproductive Health and Aids Programs? - Evidence from OECD Donor Countries

This paper tries to establish who carries the burden in supporting reproductive health and AIDS programs worldwide. The 1994 International Conference of Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo established goals for the expansion of assistance in matters of reproductive health and AIDS. This global effort has so far not sufficiently been supported by funds and this paper looks at what lies behind the level of funds and the sharing of financial burdens. Panel data on expenditures for population and AIDS activities funded by 21 donor countries for the years 1983-2002 are examined by means of dynamic panel data estimation. On an aggregated scale small donors 'exploit' the large donors: large donors give more resources than their 'fair share', i.e. their income weight in the group of donors. However, this picture is not true for the finance and support for multilateral organizations where every donor country pays its fair share. The exploitation hypothesis is true for the cases of bilateral aid and NGOs. The exploitation model gives however a partial view of what determines the sharing of burdens. To understand burden sharing across countries fully one needs to take account of the most dominant religions in a country, the pro-foreign aid stance of a government and the government size. Donor countries are not much affected in their funding behavior by the state of development of the least developed countries.
Improved results for linear discrete-time systems with an interval time-varying input delay

This paper addresses the problem of delay-dependent stability analysis and controller synthesis for a discrete-time system with an interval time-varying input delay. By dividing delay interval into multiple parts and constructing a novel piecewise Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional, an improved delay-partitioning-dependent stability criterion and a stabilisation criterion are obtained in terms of matrix inequalities. Compared with some existing results, since a tighter bounding inequality is employed to deal with the integral items, our results depend on less number of linear matrix inequality scalar decision variables while obtaining same or better allowable upper delay bound. Numerical examples show the effectiveness of the proposed method.
A molecular dynamics study of the early stages of amyloid‐β(1–42) oligomerization: The role of lipid membranes

As research progresses toward understanding the role of the amyloid‐β (Aβ) peptide in Alzheimer's disease, certain aspects of the aggregation process for Aβ are still not clear. In particular, the accepted constitution of toxic aggregates in neurons has shifted toward small oligomers. However, the process of forming these oligomers in cells is also not full clear. Even more interestingly, it has been implied that cell membranes, and, in particular, anionic lipids within those membranes, play a key role in the progression of Aβ aggregation, but the exact nature of the Aβ‐membrane interaction in this process is unknown. In this work, we use a thermodynamic cycle and umbrella sampling molecular dynamics to investigate dimerization of the 42‐residue Aβ peptide on model zwitterionic dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) or model anionic dioleoylphosphatidylserine (DOPS) bilayer surfaces. We determined that Aβ dimerization was strongly favored through interactions with the DOPS bilayer. Further, our calculations showed that the DOPS bilayer promoted strong protein–protein interactions within the Aβ dimer, whereas DPPC favored strong protein–lipid interactions. By promoting dimer formation and subsequent dimer release into the solvent, the DOPS bilayer acts as a catalyst in Aβ aggregation. Proteins 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.