Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pituitary Adenylate Cyclase-activating Polypeptide Type 1 Receptor (PAC1) Gene Is Suppressed by Transglutaminase 2 Activation*

Background: The expression of PAC1, a specific receptor for PACAP, is decreased in brain ischemia. Results: PAC1 expression was attenuated by inactivation of Sp1 through cross-linking by transglutaminase 2 (TG2) activated by ER stress. Conclusion: TG2 is involved in negative regulation of PAC1 gene expression. Significance: Suppression of PAC1 by TG2 might be involved in neuronal damage from brain ischemia. Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) functions as a neuroprotective factor through the PACAP type 1 receptor, PAC1. In a previous work, we demonstrated that nerve growth factor augmented PAC1 gene expression through the activation of Sp1 via the Ras/MAPK pathway. We also observed that PAC1 expression in Neuro2a cells was transiently suppressed during in vitro ischemic conditions, oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD). Because endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress is induced by ischemia, we attempted to clarify how ER stress affects the expression of PAC1. Tunicamycin, which induces ER stress, significantly suppressed PAC1 gene expression, and salubrinal, a selective inhibitor of the protein kinase RNA-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase signaling pathway of ER stress, blocked the suppression. In luciferase reporter assay, we found that two Sp1 sites were involved in suppression of PAC1 gene expression due to tunicamycin or OGD. Immunocytochemical staining demonstrated that OGD-induced transglutaminase 2 (TG2) expression was suppressed by salubrinal or cystamine, a TG activity inhibitor. Further, the OGD-induced accumulation of cross-linked Sp1 in nuclei was suppressed by cystamine or salubrinal. Together with cystamine, R283, TG2-specific inhibitor, and siRNA specific for TG2 also ameliorated OGD-induced attenuation of PAC1 gene expression. These results suggest that Sp1 cross-linking might be crucial in negative regulation of PAC1 gene expression due to TG2 in OGD-induced ER stress.
Macroeconomic Conditions and Leverage in Monetary Financial Institutions: Comparing European countries and Luxembourg

In this article we study the interaction between leading macroeconomic indicators (industrial production, stock prices, consumer sentiment and real interest rates) and financial sector leverage in major European countries. We base our analysis on monthly, country-aggregated panel VAR models for the pre-crisis period January 2003 to August 2008, and the crisis period September 2008 to June 2011. We find little evidence for a relationship between macroeconomic variables and leverage in the pre-crisis period, with only real interest rates having a negative short-term impact on leverage growth. We find positive feedback loops between sentiment and stock prices as well as MFI assets in the pre-crisis period, and a positive impact of real interest rate changes on equity and asset growth. Thus, balance sheet expansions were driven by sentiment and stock prices, while real interest changes allowed MFIs to profit from higher spreads. During the crisis period (starting in September 2008), we observe a countercyclical impact from leverage on sentiment and stock prices, while sentiment and stock prices bear a pro-cyclical impact on leverage. In contrast to this, MFI leverage in Luxembourg is negatively impacted by stock prices, suggesting significant impacts from marking-to-market. We conclude that leverage drives expectations of financial instability (via e.g. default expectations), while sentiment and stock prices drive financial institutions? investment decisions (via e.g. collateral value effects).
Quality Assurance for Interpreting Processes

This article discusses how the quality issue in conference interpreting can be approached using a scheme for quality assurance. Participants in conferences have different roles and not always the same preferences, while interpreters depend on speakers and may have to work for heterogeneous audiences. On the basis of a model of mediated multilingual conference communication, interpreting processes and conditions can be analysed with the aid of a list of parameters; the list can be used by clients and conference interpreters for their overall and personal quality assurance.
An audit of patients treated for syphilis at Auckland Sexual Health Service.

AIM As there is no New Zealand data, an audit of patients treated for syphilis at Auckland Sexual Health Service (ASHS) was undertaken to see if management conformed to guidelines and was achieving acceptable outcomes. METHODS Cases were initially identified from laboratory data and were categorised as being either infectious or non-infectious according to clinical and laboratory criteria. Management was compared to recommendations from ASHS treatment guidelines and treatment outcome was assessed by serological response. RESULTS 109 cases of syphilis were identified including 9 with HIV infection (8%). Men who had sex with men were much more likely to be diagnosed with infectious syphilis than heterosexuals (p<0.0001). Fifty-one percent of infectious cases (n=35) were asymptomatic. Ninety-four percent (n=103) of cases were treated with antibiotic regimens appropriate for their clinical stage. Discrepancy in management occurred most often in the early latent and unknown duration categories. Ninety-eight cases (90%) completed the full 12 months serological follow-up period and 97% (n=92) of those had an adequate serological response to treatment. There were no treatment failures in patients with HIV infection. CONCLUSION Current care of patients with syphilis at Auckland Sexual Health Service is achieving acceptable outcomes. Criteria for diagnosing infectious syphilis cases need to be standardised as it has implications for management and disease surveillance. MSM are a major risk group for acquisition of infectious syphilis and regular serological screening is recommended as a large proportion will be asymptomatic.
Applying simple PID tuning rules with extended frequency response knowledge

A PID autotuning method is presented to exploit the knowledge of multiple frequency response points while employing simple and well assessed tuning rules (e.g. based on Internal Model Control). This is achieved by selecting, among the available frequency response points, the “best one” for indices that are compared based on also other points. Hence, the proposed method can ensure for example (local) robustness properties while being just slightly more complex than the single point tuning. Peculiar to the method is the use of the “contextual” approach, that provides both the controller parameters, and a process model inherently precise near the obtained cutoff frequency. This allows to reliably compute tuning quality indices that require a simulation of the closed loop. The proposed technique can thus assist the user in evaluating the different tunings produced by centering the synthesis on each point. A demonstration of the procedure is given on a set of models taken from a literature benchmark, to witness its usefulness and applicability.
Managing Interdisciplinary, Longitudinal Research Teams: Extending Grounded Theory-Building Methodologies

The purpose of this study is to extend the literature on grounded theory development to incorporate considerations for team-based, interdisciplinary longitudinal research projects in the domain of organizational studies. Every element of the research process is affected if the research questions call for team-based data collection and interpretation over a lengthy period of time. It is unusual for a team of scholars from different disciplines to work together, not because the need doesn't exist, but because the mechanisms for doing so are not well established. We draw from the writings of scholars in the fields of research methodology, team and work-group design, and project management to inform our thinking on the subject. The work presented here is based on the authors' experiences during 1995--1999 as members of the Radical Innovation Research Program (RIRP). The RIRP is an ongoing multidisciplinary study of the development and management of radical innovations in established firms. Here, we do not describe the findings or insights associated with the content of the study, radical innovation, which is surely a complex managerial phenomenon. Rather, we focus on the processes used to conduct the research that were affected by the need for a multidisciplinary research team. A framework is presented for thinking about managing such a project. Challenges that we encountered within this framework are identified. Mechanisms we used (or, in some cases, wish we had used in retrospect) for confronting those challenges are also described. Throughout, we compare our study objectives and resultant methodological design choices with those of other multidisciplinary research teams that are by now well known in the organizational management literature. Our objective is to help researchers who are considering launching interdisciplinary, longitudinal studies of organizational processes as they plan and manage those pursuits.
THE EFFECTS OF SHORT-SALES AND LEVERAGE CONSTRAINTS ON MARKET EFFICIENCY

This dissertation is a collection of three essays on the effects of short-sales and leverage constraints on market efficiency. The first two essays are single-authored, while the third essay is coauthored with Harrison Hong and José Scheinkman. The first essay investigates what drives momentum crashes. I argue that momentum crashes are due to crowded trades which push prices away from fundamentals leading to strong reversals, and exacerbated by limits of arbitrage due to impediments to short selling. I show that momentum crashes can be avoided in the cross section by shorting only noncrowded losers. There is considerably more short-covering during times when momentum fails. I show using high frequency transactions data that short covering is especially severe in the crowded loser portfolio. A placebo test using a set of 63 futures contracts show that momentum crashes do not exist in futures market after market exposure is correctly hedged, which is consistent with my hypothesis. The second essay studies the market impact of margin changes in the metals commodity futures market. Using CFTC’s proprietary transactional audit trail with detailed account information, I document substantial changes in the composition of traders when a margin change is imposed. Regardless of the direction of margin change, market participants decrease their market exposure after controlling for volatility. Moreover, the effect of margin changes depends on the fraction of traders who are levered, and thus cannot be assessed with public data. The third essay shows that the short ratio is strongly correlated with a stock’s share turnover or liquidity. So highly shorted stocks may simply be easier for arbitrageurs to cover their shorts and hence to arbitrage. We show that days-to-cover, which divides short ratio by turnover, is a superior measure of binding short-sales constraints — stocks with high days-to-cover under-perform the market by 140 basis points per month. And this underperformance has increased significantly over time as the correlation between short ratio and share turnover has gotten more pronounced. iii
The UK grocery business: towards a sustainable model for virtual markets

Purpose – With the emergence of enabling internet technologies and increased competition between UK supermarkets has led the “big four” – Tesco, J Sainsbury, ASDA and Safeway/Morrisons – to develop grocery operations online. The objective of this paper is to evaluate and present best practice strategies employed by major retail organisations concerning these deployments. The paper argues that Tesco's superior performance can be identified through five critical factors. However, continued success using existing models and thinking is problematic and that future advantages will rely on taking a complex adaptive systems view of the deployment of E‐Grocery systems.Design/methodology/approach – The methodology employed is a conceptual synthesis of current knowledge, based on theoretical constructs and empirical observations.Findings – There is evidence of varying degrees of progress and lessons learnt, from adopting strategies and internet technologies, with new ways of conceptualizing and managing virtual ret.
Measuring the Spillovers of Venture Capital

Abstract This paper shows that venture capital investment in start-ups increases innovation of established companies in technologically related fields due to knowledge spillovers. To address endogeneity issues, we instrument R&D expenditures of established companies with state-level R&D tax credits (Bloom, Schankerman, & Van Reenen, 2013) and venture capital investment with past fundraising of private equity buyout funds (Nanda & Rhodes-Kropf, 2013). Exploring the mechanism, we show that the patents of VC-financed start-ups are on average of higher quality, more novel, and less protected by intellectual property rights than those of established firms, leading to significantly larger spillovers. This knowledge transfer between companies is enhanced by mobile start-up inventors.
A service perspective on modelling intentions of on‐line purchasing

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between behavioural intentions and its antecedent factors in online services settings.Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from a national survey of Australians with experience purchasing online. A conceptual model linking behavioural intentions and its key antecedents was tested using partial least squares.Findings – The results suggest that behavioural intentions are directly influenced by online service quality, online service value and online service satisfaction. Online service satisfaction, in turn, is affected by online service value and quality; whereas online service value is determined by the online service quality and related sacrifice.Research limitations/implications – These findings suggest that existing services marketing models developed in offline settings can be adapted to online settings to explain behavioural intentions. Although the sample included a wide range of people, generalisations of the findings s.
Differential regulatory roles of crustacean predators in a sub-arctic, soft-sediment system

The role of predation in structuring soft-sediment communities varies as a function of the number and composition of predators that co-occur in a given habitat. In Bonne Bay, Newfoundland, contrasting abundances or predators in different areas of the bay may contribute to different regulatory roles of predators on infauna. To test this hypothesis, results from a field exclusion experiment were compared with 5 laboratory experiments that measured the individual effects of the main crustacean predators of the bay: snow crab, rock crab, and toad crab. In the field experiment, the exclusion of predators generated clear differences in infaunal composition, and 2 species (the polychaete Pholoe tecta and the clam Macoma calcarea) dominated exclusion treatments. Predator exclusion also resulted in a significant increase in density, but only a modest increase in infaunal diversity. In the laboratory, fresh, undisturbed sediment cores were paired with similar cores, protected by mesh and exposed to each crab species in order to test for their potential effects on infaunal communities. Results indicate that snow crab and rock crab have clear effects on species composition and, as was the case with the field experiment, the infaunal species P. tecta and M. calcarea dominated exclusion treatments for both predatory crabs. These predators also reduced total infaunal density, but only rock crab significantly reduced species richness. In contrast, toad crab effects were not significant. Given that snow crab and rock crab are both targeted by commercial fisheries in Atlantic Canada, our results suggest that crab fishery removal may have multiple indirect effects on infaunal communities.
The employees’ perspective on customer orientation in the real estate industry

Previous research proposes a model of organisational behaviour to explain the salient conditions necessary to ensure customer orientation (Susskind, Borchgrevink, and Kacmar, 2003). A study of interactive service between staff and customers in the Australian real estate industry was conducted in 2009. The overall aim of the study is to examine the organisational (standards for service delivery, supervisor support and co-worker support) and certain psychological conditions (self efficacy and job satisfaction) in the real estate agencies that affect customer orientation. The research findings support the hypothesis that customer orientation has a positive and statistically significant relationship with the predictor variables of organisational standards for service delivery (organisational service culture), co-worker support and supervisor support. Self-efficacy and job satisfaction also have positive, significant relationships with customer orientation. The study indicates significant differences in the employee’s responses according to age, experience and job position. Page 1 of 8 ANZMAC 2009
Clinical and economic burden of antimicrobial resistance

Knowledge of the clinical and economic impact of antimicrobial resistance is useful to influence programs and behavior in healthcare facilities, to guide policy makers and funding agencies, to define the prognosis of individual patients and to stimulate interest in developing new antimicrobial agents and therapies. There are a variety of important issues that must be considered when designing or interpreting studies into the clinical and economic outcomes associated with antimicrobial resistance. One of the most misunderstood issues is how to measure cost appropriately. Although imperfect, existing data show that there is an association between antimicrobial resistance in Staphylococcus aureus, enterococci and Gram-negative bacilli and increases in mortality, morbidity, length of hospitalization and cost of healthcare. Patients with infections due to antimicrobial-resistant organisms have higher costs (US$6000–30,000) than do patients with infections due to antimicrobial-susceptible organisms; the difference in cost is even greater when patients infected with antimicrobial-resistant organisms are compared with patients without infection. Given limited budgets, knowledge of the clinical and economic impact of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, coupled with the benefits of specific interventions targeted to reduce these infections, will allow for optimal control and improved patient safety. In this review, the authors discuss a variety of important issues that must be considered when designing or interpreting studies of the clinical and economic outcomes associated with antimicrobial resistance. Representative literature is reviewed regarding the associations between antimicrobial resistance in specific pathogens and adverse outcomes, including increased mortality, length of hospital stay and cost.
In vitro and in vivo oxidative metabolism and glucuronidation of anastrozole.

AIMS Little information is available regarding the metabolic routes of anastrozole and the specific enzymes involved. We characterized anastrozole oxidative and conjugation metabolism in vitro and in vivo. METHODS A sensitive LC-MS/MS method was developed to measure anastrozole and its metabolites in vitro and in vivo. Anastrozole metabolism was characterized using human liver microsomes (HLMs), expressed cytochrome P450s (CYPs) and UDP-glucuronosyltransferases (UGTs). RESULTS Hydroxyanastrozole and anastrozole glucuronide were identified as the main oxidative and conjugated metabolites of anastrozole in vitro, respectively. Formation of hydroxyanastrozole from anastrozole was markedly inhibited by CYP3A selective chemical inhibitors (by >90%) and significantly correlated with CYP3A activity in a panel of HLMs (r= 0.96, P= 0.0005) and mainly catalyzed by expressed CYP3A4 and CYP3A5. The K(m) values obtained from HLMs were also close to those from CYP3A4 and CYP3A5. Formation of anastrozole glucuronide in a bank of HLMs was correlated strongly with imipramine N-glucuronide, a marker of UGT1A4 (r= 0.72, P < 0.0001), while expressed UGT1A4 catalyzed its formation at the highest rate. Hydroxyanastrozole (mainly as a glucuronide) and anastrozole were quantified in plasma of breast cancer patients taking anastrozole (1 mg day⁻¹); anastrozole glucuronide was less apparent. CONCLUSION Anastrozole is oxidized to hydroxyanastrozole mainly by CYP3A4 (and to some extent by CYP3A5 and CYP2C8). Once formed, this metabolite undergoes glucuronidation. Variable activity of CYP3A4 (and probably UGT1A4), possibly due to genetic polymorphisms and drug interactions, may alter anastrozole disposition and its effects in vivo.
Influence of insoluble fibre and whole wheat inclusion on the performance, digestive tract development and ileal microbiota profile of broiler chickens

1. An experiment of 21-d duration was conducted to examine the effects of diluting wheat-based diets with insoluble fibre sources and whole wheat inclusion on the performance, nutrient utilisation, digestive tract development and ileal microbiota profile of broiler chickens. The treatments were as follows: Treatment 1, control diet based on ground wheat; Treatment 2, where 200 g/kg whole wheat replaced the ground wheat pre-pelleting; and Treatments 3 and 4 where the control diet was diluted with fine cellulose and wood shavings, respectively, at a ratio of 6 : 100 (w/w). 2. Weight gains and apparent metabolisable energy were unaffected by dietary treatment. Gain : feed ratio was not influenced by the inclusion of whole wheat or wood shavings, but decreased with cellulose inclusion. However, when gain:feed of birds was corrected by subtracting the amount of cellulose and wood shavings from the total feed consumption, it was found that the inclusion of wood shavings increased gain : feed, while cellulose inclusion had no effect. Similarly, AMEN was unaffected by dietary treatment. However, when AMEN was corrected for energy contribution from cellulose or wood shavings, improvements in AMEN were observed in these two treatments. 3. Wood shavings increased the relative gizzard weights and improved ileal starch digestibility compared to other dietary treatments. All gut components were shorter in birds given diets containing cellulose and wood shavings compared to those receiving the control and whole wheat diets. 4. Ileal microbiota profiling, using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis, showed that microbial composition was affected by dietary treatment and that the treatments were grouped into two main clusters. The two groupings showed similarity between birds receiving the control and cellulose diets and similarity between birds fed on the whole wheat and wood shavings diets. 5. The findings suggest that the effects of insoluble fibre on broiler performance differed depending on the fibre particle size.