Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Developing Key Competencies for Sustainable Development in Higher Education

Purpose – To date, little attention has been given to the circumstances in which developing key competencies for sustainable development may take place. Within higher education, the possibilities both of formal and informal learning and their relationship to competence development should be considered.Design/methodology/approach – Based on focus groups an explorative, qualitative study was designed, using different groups from formal and informal learning settings.Findings – The development of key competencies is based both on cognitive and non-cognitive dispositions and asks for multiple contexts. Through combining formal and informal learning settings within higher education – as part of a new learning culture – a variety of contexts can be given and competence development can be enhanced.Research limitations – While aspects of both formal and informal learning settings could be identified, the interdependencies between them remain elusive.Practical implications (if applicable) – Based on the findings, some main aspects can be pointed out that may be crucial for competence development in higher education settings.Originality/value – The paper analyses the implications of new ways for both formal and informal learning settings for developing key competencies within higher education. Particular attention is given to interdisciplinarity and students’ self-responsibility.
Yusuke Sakamaki and Hiroshi Itoh Hypertrophy and Regresses Hypertension ' ' Pulse ' ' Treatment With High-Dose Angiotensin Blocker Reverses Renal Arteriolar

One ultimate goal of hypertension therapy is to cause permanent reversal (“regression”) of already established hypertension. Our aim was to examine whether high-dose “pulse” treatment with a renin-angiotensin system inhibitor could cause regression of established hypertension and to link this action to reversal of arteriolar hypertrophy and changes in vascular matrix metalloproteinase activities. First, 16-week-old male spontaneously hypertensive rats (n 60) were pulse treated for 2 weeks with high-dose angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (enalapril), angiotensin receptor blocker (candesartan), calcium channel blocker (nifedipine), or vasodilator (hydralazine) with or without salt restriction, and the long-term effects on blood pressure were examined. Second, spontaneously hypertensive rats were treated with angiotensin receptor blocker or calcium channel blocker, and the effects on renal gene expressions, arteriolar structure, and vascular matrix metalloproteinase were compared. Treatment of spontaneously hypertensive rats with different antihypertensive agents caused apparently similar reductions in blood pressure during the course of the pulse treatment, within the limitations of the tail-cuff method. After cessation of medications, blood pressure in the rats treated with renin-angiotensin system inhibitor remained reduced by 30 to 40 mm Hg for 4 months. No such effect was seen with calcium channel blocker or vasodilator. The 2-week angiotensin receptor blocker treatment induced a marked reversal of the arteriolar hypertrophy specifically in the small (30 to 100 m) renal arterioles, together with increased expression and activity of matrix metalloproteinase-13. In conclusion, transient high-dose pulse treatment with angiotensin receptor blocker caused changes in vascular matrix metalloproteinase activity, specific reversal of renal arteriolar hypertrophy, and regression of hypertension in spontaneously hypertensive rats. (Hypertension. 2009;53:83-89.)
Stem cells display a donor dependent response to escalating levels of growth factor release from extracellular matrix‐derived scaffolds

Numerous growth factor delivery systems have been developed for tissue engineering. However, little is known about how the dose of a specific protein will influence tissue regeneration, or how different patients will respond to altered levels of growth factor presentation. The objective of the present study was to assess stem cell chondrogenesis within extracellular‐matrix (ECM)‐derived scaffolds loaded with escalating levels of transforming growth factor (TGF)‐β3. It was also sought to determine if stem cells display a donor‐dependent response to different doses of TGF‐β3, from low (5 ng) to high (200 ng), released from such scaffolds. It was found that ECM‐derived scaffolds possess the capacity to bind and release increasing amounts of TGF‐β3, with between 60% and 75% of this growth factor released into the media over the first 12 days of culture. After seeding these scaffolds with human infrapatellar fat pad‐derived stem cells (FPSCs), it was found that cartilage‐specific ECM accumulation was greatest for the higher levels of growth factor loading. Importantly, soak‐loading cartilage ECM‐derived scaffolds with high levels of TGF‐β3 always resulted in at least comparable levels of chondrogenesis to controls where this growth factor was continuously added to the culture media. Similar results were observed for FPSCs from all donors, although the absolute level of secreted matrix did vary from donor to donor. Therefore, while no single growth factor release profile will be optimal for all patients, the results of this study suggest that the combination of a highly porous cartilage ECM‐derived scaffold coupled with appropriate levels of TGF‐β3 can consistently drive chondrogenesis of adult stem cells. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Human Capital Orientation and Financial Performance : a Comparative Analysis of US Corporatons

In the knowledge-based economy, long-term corporate performance and its competitive advantage are strongly associated with human capital. Theoretical deliberations suggest that companies with greater human capital orientation (higher salaries and benefits, more training, a transformational leadership style, better equipment) might perform better than their peers with less human capital orientated strategy due to: higher skills of employees, greater motivation and thus higher overall corporate effectiveness. On the other hand, orientation towards human capital generates higher costs which may negatively affect profitability and stock market valuation. There are two aims of this paper. The first one is to state whether human capital orientated firms generate positive financial performance. The second aim is to compare financial performance of human capital orientated firms with the benchmarking sample to state if the financial performance is above-average. Research was conducted on a sample of 7,204 unique publicly listed companies from the American stock market within a ten year period (72,040 firm-year observations). Empirical studies were carried out with the help of one hypothesis. Two groups of companies were created and their results on financial performance were compared. The first group consisted of human capital orientated firms that were identified with the help of the well-known 100 Best Companies to Work For listing, in line with the Edmans (2009) approach. The second group composed of US-based publicly listed entities from 11 industries. Analysis was conducted for the 2007-2017 years. The key findings of the paper are: strategy based on human capital orientation provides high profitability and leads to above-average financial performance, mainly in the field of equity growth and stock market valuation. The paper has significant practical implications for investors in terms of possible directions of stock market investments aimed at achieving above-average returns as well as for corporate management by indicating that human capital orientation pays off. The paper fills the research gap between two points. First, it states in which financial performance pillars human capital orientated firms perform best. Second, it compares the results of the human capital orientated strategy with the entities from the 11 different industries. Research refers to the American publicly listed enterprises.
Further results on H∞ control for discrete-time Markovian jump time-delay systems

ABSTRACT This paper studies the problem of H∞ control for a class of discrete-time Markovian jump systems with time delay. The purpose is to improve the existing results on H∞ controller design for Markovian jump systems. A novel summation inequality is presented and an improved stability criterion for the system is derived by utilising the new inequality, which is proved to be less conservative than most results in the literature. Then the state feedback controller is designed, which guarantees the stochastic stability of the closed-loop system with a given disturbance attenuation. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed techniques.
Cyclooxygenase‐2 inhibition inhibits PI3K/AKT kinase activity in epithelial ovarian cancer

Cyclooxygenase‐2 (COX‐2) expression contributes to tumor growth and invasion in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). COX‐2 inhibitors exhibit important anticarcinogenic potential against EOC, but the molecular mechanisms underlying this effect and relation with PI3‐kinase/AKT signaling remain the subject of intense investigations. Therefore, the role of COX‐2 in EOC and its cross talk with PI3‐kinase/AKT pathway were investigated using a large series of EOC tissues in a tissue micro array (TMA) format followed by in vitro and in vivo studies using EOC cell lines and NUDE mice. Clinically, COX‐2 was overexpressed in 60.3% of EOC and was significantly associated with activated AKT (p < 0.0001). Cox‐1 expression was seen in 59.9% but did not associate with AKT. Our in vitro data using EOC cell line showed that inhibition of COX‐2 by aspirin, selective inhibitor NS398 and gene silencing by COX‐2 specific siRNA impaired phosphorylation of AKT resulting decreased downstream signaling leading to cell growth inhibition and induction of apoptosis. Finally, treatment of MDAH2774 cell line xenografts with aspirin resulted in growth inhibition of tumors in NUDE mice via down‐regulation of COX‐2 and AKT activity. These data identify COX‐2 as a potential biomarker and therapeutic target in distinct molecular subtypes of ovarian cancer.
Mobile Edge Computing Enhanced Adaptive Bitrate Video Delivery With Joint Cache and Radio Resource Allocation

Accompanied by the rapid development of mobile video service requirements, the dramatic increase in video streaming traffic causes a heavy burden for mobile networks. Mobile edge computing (MEC) has become a promising paradigm to enhance the mobile networks by providing cloud-computing capabilities within the radio access network (RAN). With the ability of content caching and context awareness, MEC could provide low-latency and adaptive-bitrate video streaming to improve service providing ability of the RAN. In this paper, we propose an MEC enhanced adaptive bitrate (ABR) video delivery scheme, which combines content caching and ABR streaming technology together. The MEC server acts as a controlling component to implement the video caching strategy and adjust the transmitted bitrate version of videos flexibly. A Stackelberg game is formulated to deal with the storage resources occupied by each base station. The joint cache and radio resource allocation (JCRA) is tackled into a matching problem. We propose the JCRA algorithm to solve the matching problem in order to make the cooperation between cache and radio resources. Simulation results reveal that the proposed scheme could improve both the cache hit ratio and the system throughput over other schemes.
Genetic influence on the kinetics and associated pathology of the early stage (intestinal-hepatic) migration of Ascaris suum in mice

SUMMARY The generative mechanism(s) of aggregation and predisposition to Ascaris lumbricoides and A. suum infections in their host population are currently unknown and difficult to elucidate in humans and pigs for ethical/logistical reasons. A recently developed, optimized murine model based on 2 inbred strains, putatively susceptible (C57BL/6j) and resistant (CBA/Ca) to infection, was exploited to elucidate further the basis of the contrasting parasite burdens, most evident at the pulmonary stage. We explored the kinetics of early infection, focusing on the composite lobes of the liver and lung, over the first 8 days in an effort to achieve a more detailed understanding of the larval dispersal over time and the point at which worm burdens diverge. Larval recoveries showed a heterogenous distribution among the lobes of the lungs, being higher in the right lung of both strains, and in the susceptible strain larvae accumulating preferentially in 2 (caudal and middle) of the 4 lobes. Total larval burdens in these 2 lobes were largely responsible for the higher worm burdens in the susceptible strain. While total lung larval recoveries significantly differed between mouse strains, a difference in liver larval burdens was not observed. However, an earlier intense inflammatory response coupled with more rapid tissue repair in the hepatic lobes was observed in CBA/Ca mice, in contrast to C57BL/6j mice, and it is possible that these processes are responsible for restricting onward pulmonary larval migration in the resistant genotype.
Calcium-dependent Threonine Phosphorylation of Nonmuscle Myosin in Stimulated RBL-2H3 Mast Cells*

Stimulation of RBL-2H3 m1 mast cells through the IgE receptor with antigen, or through a G protein-coupled receptor with carbachol, leads to the rapid appearance of phosphothreonine in nonmuscle myosin heavy chain II-A (NMHC-IIA). We demonstrate that this results from phosphorylation of Thr-1940 by calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaM kinase II), activated by increased intracellular calcium. The phosphorylation site in rodent NMHC-IIA was localized to the carboxyl terminus of NMHC-IIA distal to the coiled-coil region, and identified as Thr-1940 by site-directed mutagenesis. A fusion protein containing the NMHC-IIA carboxyl terminus was phosphorylated by CaM kinase II in vitro, while mutation of Thr-1940 to Ala eliminated phosphorylation. In contrast to rodents, in humans Thr-1940 is replaced by Ala, and human NMHC-IIA fusion protein was not phosphorylated by CaM kinase II unless Ala-1940 was mutated to Thr. Similarly, co-transfected Ala → Thr-1940 human NMHC-IIA was phosphorylated by activated CaM kinase II in HeLa cells, while wild type was not. In RBL-2H3 m1 cells, inhibition of CaM kinase II decreased Thr-1940 phosphorylation, and inhibited release of the secretory granule marker hexosaminidase in response to carbachol but not to antigen. These data indicate a role for CaM kinase stimulation and resultant threonine phosphorylation of NMHC-IIA in RBL-2H3 m1 cell activation.
Complications and outcomes of single‐stage bilateral total knee arthroplasty

Background: A recent literature review by the senior authors of this study revealed that simultaneous bilateral knee arthroplasty is uncommon and controversial. Reported complications include myocardial infarction, deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolus, thromboembolic complications, pseudo‐obstruction, postoperative ileus and death. This present study was designed to identify complications of single‐stage bilateral total knee arthroplasty to compare with reports in the international literature.
Aspects of meat and eating quality of broiler chickens reared under standard, maize-fed, free-range or organic systems

1. The effects of rearing chickens using standard, maize-fed, free-range or organic production systems on meat quality and sensory characteristics were evaluated. The standard system used either Ross or Cobb birds with a slaughter age of approximately 40 d, the other systems in the trial used Hubbard birds with considerably older slaughter ages, up to 72 d in the case of organic systems. 2. Paired breast fillets from 120 birds, 30 from each rearing system, were used. The meat quality variables, ultimate pH, colour coordinates L*, a*, b* and water-holding capacity were measured and taste panel assessments were made using 8-point category scales of texture, juiciness, abnormal flavour, flavour liking and overall flavour. 3. There were significant differences between rearing systems, with fillet muscles from birds grown under the standard system having a higher ultimate pH. Differences were also seen in colour with fillets from birds reared under a standard system having a smaller hue angle than those grown using the maize-fed system which had the highest. 4. Fillets from birds reared in the standard system were rated by the taste panel as more tender and juicy. There were no significant differences in chicken flavour. Based on hedonic assessments of flavour liking and overall liking, by a small panel of assessors, meat from birds produced in the standard system was most preferred and that from organic systems the least preferred. Meat from free-range and maize-fed systems was intermediate in preference. This result reveals a trend, but does not infer consumer acceptance.
On the ranking consistency of global systemic risk measures: empirical evidence

We empirically analyze to which extent popular global systemic risk measures (SRMs) yield comparable results with respect to the systemic importance of a financial institution and, in particular, from which determinants the degree of consistency of the classification by the various SRMs depends. In this study, we investigate the rank correlations of SRMs in order to detect common drivers that might explain (in-)consistent ranking outcomes. This could allow to facilitate the interpretation of the outcome of SRMs and to increase the reliability of their usage in academic and practical applications. Our results show that rank correlations are particularly sensitive towards a bank’s leverage and towards tightening economic conditions. This finding holds across various different specifications.
Reverberation Chamber Measurement Correlation

This contribution evaluates the utility of several different metrics for studying correlation between reverberation chamber measurements collected at different stirrer positions. Metrics considered are the autocovariance, the correlation matrix, and two metrics based upon the entropy of the data correlation matrix: 1) the effective number of uncorrelated measurements and 2) the measurement efficiency. The different metrics are shown to be useful for different correlation analyses. Application of these metrics reveals that the correlation between reverberation chamber measurements is strongly affected by stirring methodology, loading configuration, and measurement frequency.
Perceived cultural distance in intercultural service encounters: does customer participation matter?

This paper aims to investigate if perceived cultural distance (PCD) negatively affects service quality and customer satisfaction through customers’ social judgements of the service providers’ warmth and competence in intercultural service encounters (ICSE), and if this negative effect can be mitigated through customer participation (CP). ,A 2 × 2 between-subjects experimental design with an online consumer panel was conducted using a series of intercultural service encounter scenarios (in the weight loss service context) to manipulate CP (high vs low) and pictures of service providers to induce PCD (high vs low). ,As hypothesized, in the context of ICSE, PCD negatively impacts customers’ social judgements of the service providers’ warmth and competence, which in turn influence service quality and customer satisfaction. However, the negative impact of PCD is alleviated when the level of CP is high. ,Using a single service context (weight loss services) may restrict the generalizability of findings. Future research may explore other service contexts. ,To improve customers’ experience, managers in service firms with multicultural customers may create more engagement opportunities by designing the service delivery process in ways in which more CP and involvement is allowed. ,This research is among the first to highlight the importance of consumers’ social judgements about culturally dissimilar service providers, which at baseline come with disadvantages but that can be altered through marketing actions (e.g. enhanced CP).
Study on the Automated Tuning of HSDPA Code Allocation

UMTS Rel’5 [1] and Rel’6 [2], among other advances, introduce higher data rates to DL and UL through HSDPA and its counterpart HSUPA. Within this context, the objective of the current paper is to analyze the potential improvements that could provide the incorporation of an Automatic Tuning System (ATS) on the HSDPA technology. In this sense, it is assessed to which extent it is worthwhile to make a dynamic management of its three most important resources: devoted power, codes and percentage of users assigned to Rel’99 and HSDPA. From the study, one of the first conclusions reached is that the benefits of HSDPA are so high that in general, there is no clear benefit in introducing an ATS to manage power or the percentage of UEs assigned to HSDPA, both can be handled by straight forward rules-of-thumb. However, code allocation deserves a further study. Indeed, a full ATS to dynamically allocate HS-PDSCHs in HSDPA systems is proposed. This is done according to the channel quality indicators reported by the UEs, which are processed and turned into appropriate Key Performance Indicators or KPIs. In this way, a mid-term reservation mechanism is designed to guarantee that HSDPA performs at its most efficient level while guaranteeing that no codes are being wasted and unnecessarily increasing Rel’99 and HSPDA blocking probability. By means of dynamic simulations, the proposal is tested and validated.
Corporate Culture and M&As: International Evidence from Corporate Social Responsibility

We examine the role of corporate culture in M&As by utilizing a unique corporate social responsibility (CSR) dataset, providing in-depth information on multiple dimensions of organizational culture in 22 developed markets. In accordance with the prediction of the culture clash theory, a wider divergence between the corporate cultures of the acquiring and target firms is associated with lower acquirer announcement and long-run returns as well as synergistic gains for the combined firm. Cultural misalignment also increases the time required to finalise a deal, reduces the likelihood of deal completion and the percentage of stock payment. Our results are robust to alternative explanations (e.g. similarities in national culture, acquirer CSR performance), different regression specifications, and additional cultural misalignment measures. Our findings highlight the importance of the need for a deeper understanding of the role of CSR for the target selection process, integration planning, and financing choice of M&As to corporations and their investors.