Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mta Has Properties of an RNA Export Protein and Increases Cytoplasmic Accumulation of Epstein-Barr Virus Replication Gene mRNA

ABSTRACT The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) Zta and Mta regulatory proteins were previously found to be required for efficient replication of oriLyt in cotransfection-replication assays, but the contribution of Mta to the replication process was unknown. We now demonstrate that Mta regulates replication gene expression. Using the polymerase processivity factor BMRF1 as an example, we found that in transfected cells, total BMRF1 mRNA levels were unaffected by Mta but that the amounts of cytoplasmic BMRF1 RNA and protein were greatly increased in the presence of Mta. Mta also increased cytoplasmic accumulation of the BALF2, BALF5, BSLF1, and BBLF4 replication gene mRNAs but did not affect cytoplasmic levels of BBLF2/3 mRNA. Thus, five of the six core replication genes require Mta for efficient accumulation of cytoplasmic RNA. The contribution of Mta to posttranscriptional RNA processing was examined. Examination of Mta localization in transfected cells by indirect immunofluorescence revealed that Mta colocalized with the splicing factor SC35. We also found that Mta has RNA binding activity. GlutathioneS-transferase–Mta bound to BMRF1 and BMLF1 transcripts but not to a control cellular gene RNA. Mta contains a consensus leucine-rich nuclear export signal. Such signal sequences are characteristic of proteins that undergo nuclear export. Examination of Mta localization in a heterokaryon assay provided evidence that Mta shuttles between the nucleus and the cytoplasm. Our experiments indicate that Mta functions in RNA processing and transport and mediates cytoplasmic accumulation of a number of EBV early mRNAs.
Relationships between Isometric Force-Time Characteristics and Dynamic Performance

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between isometric mid-thigh pull (IMTP) force-time characteristics (peak force and time-specific force vales (100–250 ms)) and dynamic performance and compare dynamic performance between stronger and weaker athletes. Forty-three athletes from different sports (rowing, soccer, bicycle motocross, and hockey) performed three trials of the squat jump (SJ), countermovement jump (CMJ), and IMTP, and performed a one repetition maximum power clean (PC). Reactive strength index modified (RSImod) was also calculated from the CMJ. Statistically significant large correlations between IMTP force-time characteristics and PC (ρ = 0.569–0.674, p < 0.001), and moderate correlations between IMTP force-time characteristics (excluding force at 100 ms) and RSImod (ρ = 0.389–0.449, p = 0.013–0.050) were observed. Only force at 250 ms demonstrated a statistically significant moderate correlation with CMJ height (ρ = 0.346, p = 0.016) and no statistically significant associations were observed between IMTP force-time characteristics and SJ height. Stronger athletes (top 10) demonstrated statistically significantly greater CMJ heights, RSImods, and PCs (p ≤ 0.004, g = 1.32–1.89) compared to weaker (bottom 10) athletes, but no differences in SJ height were observed (p = 0.871, g = 0.06). These findings highlight that the ability to apply rapidly high levels of force in short time intervals is integral for PC, CMJ height, and reactive strength.
"Craving": exploring the components of the Desires for Alcohol Questionnaire (DAQ) and the relation to the severity of alcohol problems.

OBJECTIVE The aims of this study were (a) to explore the components of craving, as measured by the Desires for Alcohol Questionnaire (DAQ), and (b) to examine how craving may relate to the severity of alcohol problems. METHOD A total of 106 patients seeking treatment for an alcohol use disorder (AUD) completed the DAQ and Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). The overall sample was predominantly male (63%) with a mean age of 44 years. Sixty-one percent of the participants were abstinent from alcohol at the time of the study. Principal components analysis was conducted on the DAQ for the overall, abstinent, and currently drinking samples. Correlations were computed between the DAQ and AUDIT scores, and differences in craving between the abstinent and currently drinking samples were investigated. RESULTS Components of craving, as measured by the DAQ, included the desire to drink, the ability to control drinking, positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Drinkers displayed stronger cravings (Mdn = 47.00, interquartile range [IQR] = 32.0-65.0) than those currently abstinent (Mdn = 33.00, IQR = 26.0-43.0; U = 850.0; z = 3.127, p < .01; r = .30). The intensity of craving increased with the severity of the AUD in current drinkers (r = .739, p < .001). CONCLUSIONS Because of the small sample size, the results of the study should be regarded as preliminary. The components of craving, as measured by the DAQ, support those previously identified in the literature. The study supports the notion that craving is positively associated with the severity of an AUD.
Poverty Dynamics During Trade Reform: Evidence from Rural Vietnam

This paper implements and adapts the conceptual framework developed by Winters (2002) that identifies the transmission mechanisms between trade policy reform and household welfare outcomes. We make use of household panel data from Vietnam collected in two years, 1992-93 and 1997-98 that span the very earliest years of the reform period and its immediate after effects. Poverty dynamics are modeled using changes in consumption expenditure and poverty transition models. The trade effect is captured by a set of variables that are most likely to have an impact on rural poverty, namely prices of staples and employment in the export sector. We show that trade liberalization has a material and positive effect on rural household welfare and this trade effect is largely transmitted to the poor through the labor market channel. Copyright 2008 The Authors. Journal compilation International Association for Research in Income and Wealth 2008.
LINKAGE BETWEEN CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES IN LIFE INSURANCE INDUSTRY: MA CUSTOMERS CENTRIC ANALYSIS

INTRODUCTION The concept to relationship marketing has emerged within the field of service marketing and industrial marketing (Gummesson, 1991). This concept is strongly supported by on-going trends in modern business (Webster, 1992). Rapp and Collin (1990) argued that the goals of relationship marketing are to create and maintain relationship between firms and its customers that are benefiting for both sides. This is achieved by a mutual symbiosis and fulfillment of promises (Ndulisi, 2003). The interaction and network approaches, clearly views marketing as an interactive process in a social context where relationship building and management are a vital underpinning (Ragozzi, 1975).
Corporate motive and fit in cause related marketing

Purpose – Cause related marketing (CrM) has gained popularity in Europe within the past decade. Therefore, the authors aim to investigate corporate motive and the fit of a company brand with the CrM cause as determinants of CrM campaign success.Design/methodology/approach – Conjoint analysis is applied to campaign evaluations from 278 students in Germany. Campaigns attached to laptop purchases supporting an African hospital with either medical (low fit) or IT (high fit) infrastructure and were based on altruistic, neutral, or profit‐oriented company motives.Findings – The authors find that altruistic motives increase consumer evaluations. In contrast to their hypothesis, campaigns are evaluated more positively, when product cause fit is low.Research limitations/implications – Based on their findings, the authors suggest exploring the fit of CrM campaigns in more detail: future research might explicitly consider the congruence of a CrM donation with a company's product, with the brand's claim and philosoph.
Beverage Consumption Patterns in Elementary School Aged Children across a Two-Year Period

Objective: Existing data was reexamined to determine changes in beverage consumption and associations between beverages consumed and BMI Z-score in children (n = 164) across two years. Methods: Beverages (milk, 100% juice, diet soda or sugar sweetened) and total caloric intake were calculated from a 24-hour diet recall. Height and weight were measured to calculate BMI. Subjects were categorized by BMI Z-score as normal weight, overweight, gained weight and lost weight. Data was collected at baseline and year 2. Results: Significant decreases in milk and increases in diet soda were found over two years in all subjects and normal weight, whereas overweight had a significant increase in diet soda consumption and a decrease in milk consumption that did not reach significance. Change in milk consumption was inversely correlated with sugar-sweetened beverage consumption. Increases in diet soda consumption were significantly greater for overweight and subjects who gained weight as compared to normal weight subjects. Baseline BMI Z-score and year 2 diet soda consumption predicted 83.1% of the variance in year 2 BMI Z-score. Conclusion: Shifts in beverage consumption were found in this convenient sample across two years. Diet soda consumption was the only type of beverage associated with year 2 BMI Z-score, and consumption was greater in overweight subjects and subjects who gained weight as compared to normal weight subjects at two years. Additional longitudinal data examining associations between beverage consumption and BMI is needed in children and adolescents, as consumption of regular and diet soda has become more of a social norm.
First Symptoms and Neurocognitive Correlates of Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia.

BACKGROUND Previous works highlight the neurocognitive differences between apathetic and disinhibited clinical presentations of the behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). However, little is known regarding how the early presentation (i.e., first symptom) is associated to the neurocognitive correlates of the disease's clinical presentation at future stages of disease. OBJECTIVES We analyzed the neurocognitive correlates of patients with bvFTD who debuted with apathy or disinhibition as first symptom of disease. METHODS We evaluated the neuropsychological, clinical, and neuroanatomical (3T structural images) correlates in a group of healthy controls (n = 30) and two groups of bvFTD patients (presented with apathy [AbvFTD, n = 18] or disinhibition [DbvFTD, n = 16]). To differentiate groups according to first symptoms, we used multivariate analyses. RESULTS The first symptom in patients described the evolution of the disease. AbvFTD and DbvFTD patients showed increased brain atrophy and increased levels of disinhibition and apathy, respectively. Whole brain analyzes in AbvFTD revealed atrophy in the frontal, insular, and temporal areas. DbvFTD, in turn, presented atrophy in the prefrontal regions, temporoparietal junction, insula, and temporoparietal region. Increased atrophy in DbvFTD patients (compared to AbvFTD) was observed in frontotemporal regions. Multivariate analyses confirmed that a set of brain areas including right orbitofrontal, right dorsolateral prefrontal, and left caudate were enough to distinguish the patients' subgroups. ∥Conclusion: First symptom in bvFTD patients described the neurocognitive impairments after around three years of disease, playing an important role in the early detection, disease tracking, and neuroanatomical specification of bvFTD, as well as in future research on potential disease-modifying treatments.
Green marketing messages and consumers' purchase intentions: Promoting personal versus environmental benefits

This study examines whether consumers' purchase intentions are influenced by the type of green marketing communications message to which they are exposed, and whether this effect is moderated by their level of environmental involvement (EI), measured across cognitive, affective and behavioural attitude components. A sample of university students (N = 171) were exposed to one of three print advertisements showing a typical ad for the product, an ad promoting a personal benefit to product purchase and an ad promoting a pure environmental benefit. Results revealed no difference in purchase intention across the three types of advertisement; however, it was found that participants' level of environmental affect moderated the effect of the advertisements on purchase intention. Participants with higher environmental affect showed greater purchase intention when exposed to the pure environmental advertisement; those with a lower level of affect showed greater purchase intention when exposed to the personal environmental advertisement. Implications for the meaning and measurement of EI are discussed, as well as for marketers of green products.
Gradient Coding: Avoiding Stragglers in Distributed Learning

We propose a novel coding theoretic framework for mitigating stragglers in distributed learning. We show how carefully replicating data blocks and coding across gradients can provide tolerance to failures and stragglers for synchronous Gradient Descent. We implement our schemes in python (using MPI) to run on Amazon EC2, and show how we compare against baseline approaches in running time and generalization error.
Free Medicines and Free Diagnosis : A Step towards Social Security Measures by Rajasthan State in India

Urban sprawl is endemic throughout the world and there is widespread concern over its potential environmental and public health impacts. Many of the nations' cities are consuming land faster than their population is growing pushing the spectre of urban and suburban pollution farther into rural corridors. It should be noted that the advancement of global technology has provided many benefits including higher standard of living, an abundant food supply and state-of-the art technology. Unfortunately mankind is now bearing the unforeseen burden of advanced technology as if has introduced new pollutants and toxins into our environment. Scientists and medical practitioners agree that environmental pollutants are adversely affecting human health. Mention of all above factors indicate that health problems in developing countries are created mostly by the environment in which the people live and if there is anything certain in such conditions it is illness.
INVESTMENT APPRAISAL PROCESS: A CASE OF CHEMICAL COMPANIES

This case study examines the capital budgeting practices of two chemical companies. It is found that the companies apply the value management tools to supplement the DCF measures. In addition, the R&D projects are assessed using qualitative methods. Moreover, the study revealed the symptom of a trend shift in the choice of investment appraisal techniques from traditional DCF to the newly crafted value management models.
Vegetable Producer Perceptions and Willingness to Pay for Biopesticides

Abstract Strict maximum residue limits in export markets are likely to place restrictions on pesticide use on vegetable crops in developing countries. In West Africa, the key factors influencing vegetable farmers' willingness to pay for biopesticides as alternatives to chemical pesticides are assessed. The key factors identified from vegetable producers' surveys are access to education and extension services, experience in pesticide use, and the effectiveness of pesticides to control new pests. The adoption of biopesticide as a substitute to chemical pesticide to control the diamondback moth on cabbage would occur more likely in Ghana, given the greater emphasis of extension on awareness and information on integrated pest management (IPM). The low level of awareness and information of farmers in Benin to make a clear difference between biological and chemical pesticides presents unrealistic expectations for biopesticide introductions now.
Managing Human Resources in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises: Entrepreneurship and the Employment Relationship

Part I: The Distinctive Case of SMEs 1. Introduction 2. From Entrepreneur to Owner-Manager 3. Shaping Employment Relationships in Small Firms Part II: Managing Human Resources 4. Recruitment and Selection 5. Training and Development 6. Reward and Recognition 7. Staff Turnover Part III: Re-thinking HRM in SMEs 8. SME Growth, HRM and the Role of Formalisation 9. Employment Relationships and Practices in SMEs 10. The Management of Human Resources in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
Who Gets What? Shareholder Value of Acquirers and Targets in Indian Takeovers

This paper examines the shareholder value of acquirers and targets in India during the period 2007–2013. Shareholder value is calculated around the acquisition announcement using the market model, market-adjusted method, and mean-adjusted method. Using acquisition data of 54 deals involving change in control during this period, we find that acquirers do not create value to their shareholders at the time of the acquisition announcement. We obtain similar results for target firms. The combined returns of acquirers and targets are also statistically insignificant. This is the first study that examines the shareholder value of both acquirers as well as targets in India. Significantly, our results are in complete contrast with the findings reported for developed markets. for the rest of the world. The results from this study demonstrate that the well-accepted notion that the acquirer loses in an acquisition is confined to the U.U. C. region (U.S., U.K., and Canada); acquirers in the rest of the world (ROW) gain an average abnormal return of 1.56% in the short run. The returns of the target firms from ROW are almost half compared to those of the targets from the U.U. C. region.
Counterparty Responses to Managerial Overconfidence

Existing research links CEO personality traits to a number of corporate decisions including overinvestment, external acquisitions, and earnings management. These findings raise the question of whether counterparties distinguish between differences in individual CEO behavior, and how they respond to it. We focus on two key counterparties – auditors and credit rating agencies – and examine whether audit fees and credit ratings are affected by CEO overconfidence. We find a positive association between audit fees and CEO overconfidence, suggesting that auditors exert more effort or increase the risk premium associated with auditing firms with more overconfident CEOs. We also find a significant negative association between CEO overconfidence and credit ratings, suggesting that overconfident CEOs are associated with higher agency costs of debt and higher credit risk. 1 We thank workshop participants at American University, the University of Chicago, Georgetown University, the University of Iowa, the University of Missouri, Cathy Schrand, and David Tsui for helpful comments and suggestions.
Franchising in global markets: towards a conceptual framework

When is franchising the appropriate organizational form for implementing marketing strategy in global markets? In this paper we identify conditions under which franchising facilitates efficient transactions globally with the help of constructs from transaction cost analysis, agency theory, and franchising research in domestic contexts. Some bases for setting initial fees and royalty payments as well as the rationale for establishing master franchises are also explored. The advantages and limitations of adopting franchising as the mode of operation in global markets are briefly discussed. A conceptual framework that provides an integrated multidisciplinary approach for studies of franchising from a global marketing perspective is developed.
The efficiency and safety of percutaneous closure of secundum atrial septal defects with the Occlutech Figulla device: initial clinical experience.

OBJECTIVES We evaluated the efficiency and safety of the Occlutech Figulla device in percutaneous closure of secundum atrial septal defects (ASD). STUDY DESIGN The study included 28 patients (17 women, 11 men; mean age 43 years) who underwent percutaneous transcatheter closure using the Occlutech Figulla device for secundum ASDs causing a hemodynamically significant shunt. Defect size was estimated by transthoracic (TTE) and transesophageal (TEE) echocardiography, and also by balloon sizing in nine patients. The patients were followed-up for six months and were examined by TTE. RESULTS The mean defect size was 20.3+/-2.1 mm on TTE, 22.1+/-1.9 mm on TEE, and 24.2+/-2.4 mm on balloon sizing. The mean device size was 26.8+/-3.6 mm (range 6 to 36 mm). The mean procedure time was 44.7+/-21.4 minutes. The device was placed successfully in all the patients. A small residual flow was seen immediately after device placement in three patients (10.7%), which disappeared in two patients at three months, and in one patient at six months. During the procedure, complications were seen in four patients (14.3%), including transient sinus tachycardia in three patients (10.7%) and acute atrial fibrillation in one patient (3.6%). At six months, all the patients were asymptomatic. No ischemic stroke, cardiac perforation, device erosion, embolization, thrombus formation, or malposition of the device were observed. CONCLUSION The Occlutech Figulla occluder is a safe and efficient device to close secundum ASDs. It may be preferred especially in patients with a high risk for thrombus formation.
Temporal Association of HLA-B*81:01- and HLA-B*39:10-Mediated HIV-1 p24 Sequence Evolution with Disease Progression

ABSTRACT HLA-B*81:01 and HLA-B*39:10 alleles have been associated with viremic control in HIV-1 subtype C infection. Both alleles restrict the TL9 epitope in p24 Gag, and cytotoxic-T-lymphocyte (CTL)-mediated escape mutations in this epitope have been associated with an in vitro fitness cost to the virus. We investigated the timing and impact of mutations in the TL9 epitope on disease progression in five B*81:01- and two B*39:10-positive subtype C-infected individuals. Whereas both B*39:10 participants sampled at 2 months postinfection had viruses with mutations in the TL9 epitope, in three of the five (3/5) B*81:01 participants, TL9 escape mutations were only detected 10 months after infection, taking an additional 10 to 15 months to reach fixation. In the two remaining B*81:01 individuals, one carried a TL9 escape variant at 2 weeks postinfection, whereas no escape mutations were detected in the virus from the other participant for up to 33 months postinfection, despite CTL targeting of the epitope. In all participants, escape mutations in TL9 were linked to coevolving residues in the region of Gag known to be associated with host tropism. Late escape in TL9, together with coevolution of putative compensatory mutations, coincided with a spontaneous increase in viral loads in two individuals who were otherwise controlling the infection. These results provide in vivo evidence of the detrimental impact of B*81:01-mediated viral evolution, in a single Gag p24 epitope, on the control of viremia.
The use and effectiveness of benchmarking in SMEs

The aim of this paper is to explore current uses of benchmarking in small‐ and medium sized enterprises SMEs as well as assessing the demand for this practice. A multi‐method approach was adopted involving a telephone survey of 100 companies supplemented with in‐depth interviews with a further 22 companies generating qualitative data which explored the issues in greater detail. The most popular benchmarking indices used were financial performance, customer satisfaction and quality of products / services. Benchmarking of human resource type measures was inconsistent and piecemeal. Where benchmarking was used it was found to be very effective across all of the measures used, though low levels of interest in using benchmarking were shown by companies not already using it. Thus, whilst companies appear hesitant about using benchmarking data, where they do so, they are pleased with the results. Reasons behind this reluctance and the patterns of usage generally are explored.