Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aging-related limit of exercise efficacy on motor decline

Identifying lifestyle strategies and allied neurobiological mechanisms that reduce aging-related motor impairment is imperative, given the accelerating number of retirees and increased life expectancy. A physically active lifestyle prior to old age can reduce risk of debilitating motor decline. However, if exercise is initiated after motor decline has begun in the lifespan, it is unknown if aging itself may impose a limit on exercise efficacy to decelerate further aging-related motor decline. In Brown-Norway/Fischer 344 F1 hybrid (BNF) rats, locomotor activity begins to decrease in middle age (12–18 months). One mechanism of aging-related motor decline may be decreased expression of GDNF family receptor, GFRα-1, which is decreased in substantia nigra (SN) between 12 and 30 months old. Moderate exercise, beginning at 18 months old, increases nigral GFRα-1 and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) expression within 2 months. In aged rats, replenishing aging-related loss of GFRα-1 in SN increases TH in SN alone and locomotor activity. A moderate exercise regimen was initiated in sedentary male BNF rats in a longitudinal study to evaluate if exercise could attenuate aging-related motor decline when initiated at two different ages in the latter half of the lifespan (18 or 24 months old). Motor decline was reversed in the 18-, but not 24-month-old, cohort. However, exercise efficacy in the 18-month-old group was reduced as the rats reached 27 months old. GFRα-1 expression was not increased in either cohort. These studies suggest exercise can decelerate motor decline when begun in the latter half of the lifespan, but its efficacy may be limited by age of initiation. Decreased plasticity of GFRα-1 expression following exercise may limit its efficacy to reverse motor decline.
Linking Marketing Efforts To Financial Outcome: an Exploratory Study in Tourism and Hospitality Contexts

The purpose of this article is to improve the understanding of the marketing-finance interface by developing a model to capture the relationship between marketing efforts and the creation of owners' firm-related wealth in tourism and hospitality industries. In addition, this study combines the balance sheet and income statement—driven measures (i.e., profit margin, Tobin's q) and off-income-statement measures (i.e., customer satisfaction score) to assess the effect of marketing efforts on a firm's financial performance. The findings indicate that marketing efforts indeed affect the owner's firm-related wealth as measured by financial performance variables. Overall, this study provides a valuable benchmark for further research in the area of marketing productivity in the tourism and hospitality industries.
Additional Evidence on the Relation between Divestiture Announcements and Shareholder Wealth

This paper presents estimates of the effect of voluntary divestiture announcements on shareholder wealth. The results show that both spin-off and sell-off announcements tend to have a positive influence on the stock prices of the divesting firms, and that the spin-offs “outperform” the sell-offs on the day of the event. We also find that the economic gains to the shareholders of the selling and acquiring firms are nearly identical, suggesting that the sell-off decision is perceived by both investor groups as a positive net present value (NPV) transaction.
Accounting for the family in European income tax systems

Tax systems are expected to achieve many things at once and this paper discusses the trade-offs involved in attempting to reconcile conflicting aims. It surveys the various instruments that are used to take account of marriage and the presence of children and describes the current systems in the 15 European Union countries. The impact of alternative tax treatments of the family 'borrowed' from other countries is examined for the UK, using the tax-benefit microsimulation model, POLIMOD. The paper explores the implications of the alternatives for the tax paid by families of different types and for the work incentives of individuals in different family situations. Copyright 1999 by Oxford University Press.
Application of PCR for detection of toxigenic Corynebacterium diphtheriae strains isolated during the Russian diphtheria epidemic, 1990 through 1994

A total of 250 Corynebacterium diphtheriae isolates from clinical cases and carriers in Russia were assayed by PCR directed at the A subunit of the diphtheria toxin gene to distinguish toxigenic from nontoxigenic strains; 170 strains were positive as indicated by the presence of the 248-bp amplicon. The results of this PCR assay were in complete concordance with those of the standard immunoprecipitation assay (Elek), and the PCR assay is a useful tool for rapid identification in clinical laboratories.
Information Asymmetry and Capital Structure Around the World

This paper examines the relation between information asymmetry, capital structure and the cost of capital across countries, particularly focusing on how the relation is influenced by the various aspects of the institutional environment. Results show that firms with high levels of information asymmetry tend to use more debt capital but less long-term debt, possibly because of the differential impact of information asymmetry on the cost of different types of capital. Furthermore, the positive association between information asymmetry and market leverage is more pronounced in countries with developed banking sectors or with explicit bankruptcy codes, and less prominent in common-law countries and countries with sound law enforcement or with extensive disclosure practices.
Association between ratio indexes of body composition phenotypes and metabolic risk in Italian adults

The ratio between fat mass (FM) and fat‐free mass (FFM) has been used to discriminate individual differences in body composition and improve prediction of metabolic risk. Here, we evaluated whether the use of a visceral adipose tissue‐to‐fat‐free mass index (VAT:FFMI) ratio was a better predictor of metabolic risk than a fat mass index to fat‐free mass index (FMI:FFMI) ratio. This is a cross‐sectional study including 3441 adult participants (age range 18–81; men/women: 977/2464). FM and FFM were measured by bioelectrical impedance analysis and VAT by ultrasonography. A continuous metabolic risk Z score and harmonised international criteria were used to define cumulative metabolic risk and metabolic syndrome (MetS), respectively. Multivariate logistic and linear regression models were used to test associations between body composition indexes and metabolic risk. In unadjusted models, VAT:FFMI was a better predictor of MetS (OR 8.03, 95%CI 6.69–9.65) compared to FMI:FFMI (OR 2.91, 95%CI 2.45–3.46). However, the strength of association of VAT:FFMI and FMI:FFMI became comparable when models were adjusted for age, gender, clinical and sociodemographic factors (OR 4.06, 95%CI 3.31–4.97; OR 4.25, 95%CI 3.42–5.27, respectively). A similar pattern was observed for the association of the two indexes with the metabolic risk Z score (VAT:FFMI: unadjusted b = 0.69 ± 0.03, adjusted b = 0.36 ± 0.03; FMI:FFMI: unadjusted b = 0.28 ± 0.028, adjusted b = 0.38 ± 0.02). Our results suggest that there is no real advantage in using either VAT:FFMI or FMI:FFMI ratios as a predictor of metabolic risk in adults. However, these results warrant confirmation in longitudinal studies.
The 2009 Lawrence R. Klein Lecture: Diversified Treatment Under Ambiguity

This article develops a broad theme about treatment under ambiguity through study of a particular decision criterion. The broad theme is that a planner may want to cope with ambiguity by diversification, assigning observationally identical persons to different treatments. Study of the minimax-regret (MR) criterion substantiates the theme. The article significantly extends my earlier analysis of one-period planning with an individualistic treatment and a linear welfare function. I show that MR treatment allocations are fractional in a large class of planning problems with nonlinear welfare functions, interacting treatments, learning, and noncooperative aspects.
The Impact of Land Reform on Rural Household Incomes in Transcaucasia

An agricultural economist specializing in the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU) assesses changes in land use and their impact on rural incomes in Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. The paper compares developments in these countries with core CIS (Russia, Ukraine) and Central Asian states of the FSU. The author's premise—that agricultural growth, and hence higher well-being of the rural population are positively linked to individualization of farming structure and commercialization—is tested on the basis of survey results linking increases in farm size with higher rural incomes and accelerated sales of farm products. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: Q15, Q18, Q24. 4 figures, 4 tables, 19 references.
Design Methodology of Fault-Tolerant Custom 3D Network-on-Chip

A systematic design methodology is presented for custom Network-on-Chip (NoC) in three-dimensional integrated circuits (3D-ICs). In addition, fault tolerance is supported in the NoC if extra links are included in the NoC topology. In the proposed method, processors and the communication architecture are synthesized simultaneously in the 3D floorplanning process. 3D-IC technology enables ICs to be implemented in smaller size with higher performance; on the flip side, 3D-ICs suffer yield loss due to multiple dies in a 3D stack and lower manufacturing yield of through-silicon vias (TSVs). To alleviate this problem, a known-good-dies (KGD) test can be applied to ensure every die to be packaged into a 3D-IC is fault-free. However, faulty TSVs cannot be tested in the KGD test. In this article, the proposed method deals with the problem by providing fault tolerance in the NoC topology. The efficiency of the proposed method is evaluated using several benchmark circuits, and the experimental results show that the proposed method produces 3D NoCs with comparable performance than previous methods when fault-tolerant features are not realized. With fault tolerance in NoCs, higher yield can be achieved at the cost of performance penalty and elevated power level.
Can Government Raise Child-Care Quality? The Influence of Family Demand, Poverty, and Policy

The quality of child-care centers and preschools—situated in a mixed market—varies enormously. Advocates for higher quality urge higher subsidies and stricter central regulation. Market advocates argue instead that local demand and parental-choice remedies will spark quality gains while ensuring competitive prices. Federal and state governments have responded with an array of policy interventions: targeting subsidies on preschools serving low-income families; enacting statewide quality standards; creating tax credits and vouchers for the “working poor” and middle-class families. This article assesses the influence of these alternative policies on preschool quality, based on a national survey of 1,805 centers in 36 states. Discrete policy effects are assessed after taking into account the influence of contextual sources of family demand: statewide levels of wealth, maternal employment, and poverty rates. Contrary to K–12 patterns, we find that center quality is higher in centers receiving greater subsidies. However, the subsidy effect depends on the particular indicator of quality being observed; effects are also conditioned by state-level contexts. Statewide sources of family demand, antecedent to policy interventions, help to raise certain facets of preschool quality. Tax credits hold no discernible influence on quality. Implications for building policy strategies in “managed choice” school settings are discussed.
Factors Predicting Rural Residents’ Support of Tourism

This study examined the factors predicting attitudes toward tourism of residents from a dozen communities in Arizona, generally following the model developed by Perdue, Long, and Allen, using social exchange theory as the foundation. Findings indicated that in general, personal characteristics did not predict attitudes toward tourism, but community dependence on tourism was a predictor. Personal benefit from tourism predicted both positive and negative effects of tourism and support for additional tourism among residents of the Arizona communities; this was consistent with Perdue, Long, and Allen. Positive effects of tourism, however, did not predict tourism planning. Although support for additional tourism did predict tourism planning, it was a positive rather than a negative relationship as reported by Perdue, Long, and Allen. As expected, support for social exchange theory was mixed; the existence of personal benefit from tourism was not a significant predictor of support for tourism planning.
Educational Vouchers When There are Peer Group Effects - Size Matters

In this article, I study the effects various educational voucher policies have on the sorting of children across schools and the per-student expenditure levels at these schools, when a child's peer group matters and students differ over income and ability. I find that, depending on the magnitude of the voucher, switching from a public system to a voucher system could entail either welfare gains or losses. All voucher policies under consideration lead to greater inequality than the public system; however, these increases are not monotone in the voucher size.
Real wages and unemployment in Australia

This paper estimates a three-equation model of the Australian labor market, for employment, real wages, and the participation rate. It uses the model to study the role of incomes policies in containing real wage growth and the reasons behind the changes in unemployment since 1970. It finds that incomes policies have not been important in controlling real wages; the rise in unemployment in the 1970s was due to the rise in tax rates and unemployment benefits; and the changes in unemployment in the 1980s were connected with changes in investment and aggregate demand. Copyright 1991 by The London School of Economics and Political Science.
Experimental Autoimmune Uveitis Induced by Immunization with Retinal Pigment Epithelium–Specific 65-kDa Protein Peptides

Purpose: To investigate the pathogenic potential and sites of retinal pigment epithelium–specific 65-kDa protein (RPE65) for inducing experimental autoimmune uveitis (EAU) in Lewis rats. Methods: Twenty-six peptides were chemically synthesized based on the amino acid sequences of human RPE65. These peptides spanned the entire RPE65 sequence. Each peptide was injected into a footpad and the peritoneum of Lewis rats. The eyes were examined by slit-lamp biomicroscopy, and the findings were correlated with the histological findings. The serum antibody titer and lymphocyte reactivity against each peptide was also determined by enzyme-liked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and lymphocyte proliferation assay, respectively. Results: Active immunization of rats resulted in the induction of EAU with 14 (3 severe and 11 mild) of the 26 peptides. The clinical course of the EAU was similar to that induced by the injection of retinal antigens such as S-antigen or inter-photoreceptor retinoid binding protein (IRBP). However, the histopathologic changes differed from the EAU induced by these retinal antigens. The inflammation was induced mainly from the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and the choroid, while the retina was relatively well-preserved except for some granulomatous changes adjacent to the RPE. Conclusions: Active immunization with peptides making up RPE65 will induce EAU. RPE65 has multiple EAU-inducing sites for Lewis rats.
DRIVING ROLE OF INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS IN THE INDIAN STOCK MARKET IN SHORT AND LONG-RUN - AN EMPIRICAL STUDY

The process of liberalization leads to stock price appreciation followed by inflows from foreign investors in Indian stock markets. Post-1992, the FIIs become one of the prime forces to drive up or down Indian stock markets and their indices. MFs, being the most influential DIIs have alsoplayed their part. This study is endeavoured to find out the impact of and relationships between FIIs net flows, MFs net flows and the Indian stock markets as proxied by the BSE SENSEX Index, both in the long-run and short-run, by using tabular results, correlation test results, ADF and PP tests, Johansen and Juselius’s cointegration test and Granger causality test results. Monthly data are used from April, 2007 to March, 2012 for all the variables, i.e., FIIs net flows, MFs net flows and the BSE SENSEX Index. ADF and PP results show that all the variables are not integrated of the same order. Johansen and Juselius’s cointegration test is conducted based on ADF and PP results with FIIs net flows and MFs net flows with the revised long-run model. It points out at least two cointegration vectors and negative long-run relationships between FIIs net flows with MFs net flows. Then, it employs Granger causality test. The Granger causality test finds no short-run unilateral or bilateral causal relationships between the BSE SENSEX Index, and FIIs and MFs net flows and neither in between FIIs net flows with the MFs net flows. Therefore, it is concluded that, Indian stock markets have no informational efficiency. However, future studies should incorporate critical Indian and global macroeconomic variables’ impact on the FIIs net flows and MFs net flows and their short and long-run interrelationships to make the study results more conclusive and reliable.
Werner syndrome protein interacts functionally with translesion DNA polymerases

Werner syndrome (WS) is characterized by premature onset of age-associated disorders and predisposition to cancer. The WS protein, WRN, encodes 3′ → 5′ DNA helicase and 3′ → 5′ DNA exonuclease activities, and is implicated in the maintenance of genomic stability. Translesion (TLS) DNA polymerases (Pols) insert nucleotides opposite replication-blocking DNA lesions and presumably prevent replication fork stalling/collapse. Here, we present in vitro and in vivo data that demonstrate functional interaction between WRN and the TLS Pols, Polη, Polκ, and Polι. In vitro, WRN stimulates the extension activity of TLS Pols on lesion-free and lesion-containing DNA templates, and alleviates pausing at stalling lesions. Stimulation is mediated through an increase in the apparent Vmax of the polymerization reaction. Notably, by accelerating the rate of nucleotide incorporation, WRN increases mutagenesis by Polη. In vivo, WRN and Polη colocalize at replication-dependent foci in response to UVC irradiation. The functional interaction between WRN and TLS Pols may promote replication fork progression, at the expense of increased mutagenesis, and obviate the need to resolve stalled/collapsed forks by processes involving chromosomal rearrangements.
Self‐Protection, Strategic Interactions, and the Relative Endogeneity of Disease Risks

Self-protection is a key behavior that influences infectious disease risks. Spillovers in disease protection create different types of strategic interactions. Under certain conditions, multiple Nash equilibria may arise with the possibility of coordination failure involving excessively low self-protection, in which case individuals' expectations of others' efforts determine which outcome arises. In prior studies, assumed technical relations between self-protection and infection probabilities drove the strategic interactions. We demonstrate that strategic relations can be endogenously determined and depend on the relative endogeneity of risk (RER), defined here as the degree to which individuals can take control of their own risks in a strategic setting. The potential for coordination failure may arise when RER is sufficiently small, whereas larger levels of RER may eliminate this possibility to ensure larger levels of self-protection. We find that imposing a behaviorally-dependent indemnity may increase RER to eliminate the possibility of coordination failure. We apply our analysis to the problem of livestock disease and illustrate the theory using a numerical example of the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth disease epidemic.
How do environmental knowledge, environmental sensitivity, and place attachment affect environmentally responsible behavior? An integrated approach for sustainable island tourism

Previous studies have explored tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior (ERB) from the perspectives of individual commitment, attractiveness, and involvement. This study approaches from the standpoint of environmental knowledge (EK); it probes tourists’ behavior to facilitate sustainable tourism development, and constructs a sustainable island tourism development model by integrating EK, environmental sensitivity, place attachment, and ERB. Four hundred and seventy seven tourists visiting the Penghu Islands, Taiwan, were surveyed. Structural equation modeling was used to determine the relationships among the variables and the mediating effects. Results indicate that higher levels of tourists’ EK about the Penghu Islands are associated with stronger environmental sensitivity; environmental sensitivity which tourists have for island tourism is positively associated with place attachment. The extent of place attachment of Penghu as perceived by tourists is also positively associated with stronger ERB. When tourists are highly sensitive to the attraction, they are more likely to exhibit ERB. Environmental sensitivity and place attachment were found to exert significant effects in mediating the relationships between EK and ERB. This study pioneers the integration of all four constructs in a sustainable tourism behavior model for tourists to island tourism destinations. Suggestions for marketing and implementation of sustainable tourism, and their managerial implications are proposed.
CEO Compensation and Future Shareholder Returns: Evidence from the London Stock Exchange

This study examines the ex-post consequences of CEO compensation for shareholder value. The main objective is to explore whether companies that pay their CEO excessive fees (in comparison to those of peer firms in the same industry and size group) generate superior future returns and better operating performance. Our analysis, which separately considers the cash-based and incentive/equity-based components of CEO compensation, is based on a large sample of UK-listed companies over the period 1998–2010. We find that CEO incentive pay is negatively associated with short-term subsequent returns. Interestingly, firms that pay their CEOs at the bottom of the incentive-pay distribution earn positive abnormal returns and, also, significantly outperform those at the top of the incentive-pay distribution. Further analysis reveals that such outperformance can be largely explained by the excessive exposure of low-incentive-pay firms to idiosyncratic risk. Finally, evidence from panel regressions suggests that, in addition to its negative relationship with returns, incentive pay is also inversely associated with future operating performance.
The Impact of Personal Relationships on Bribery Incidence in Transition Economies

Prior work on corruption has largely overlooked personal relationships as an essential determinant of bribery incidence in transition economies. In these countries, relationships with public officials are instrumental in enabling transactions and lowering transaction costs, due to incoherent and ever-changing business regulations. Our study examines the impact of personal relationships on bribery incidence in Vietnam, finding that relationships with central government officials decreases the likelihood of bribery, while relationships with local government officials increases the likelihood of bribery. The results provide convincing support for the alleged importance of public-private relationships in contemporary transition economies.