Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Low latency trading and the comovement of order flow, prices, and market conditions*

We examine the impact of algorithmic trading (AT) in equities on the comovement of order flow, returns, liquidity, and volatility to assess how AT affects the market’s susceptibility to systemic shocks. Using order-level data around a natural experiment at the National Stock Exchange of India, which in 2010 has introduced features that promote HFT, we find that more intense AT reduces commonality in order flow, returns, liquidity, and volatility, and therefore reduce the market’s susceptibility to systemic shocks. These declines are more pronounced for algorithmic order flow and for large-cap firms. We attribute our findings to more intense competition among algorithmic than non-algorithmic traders.
Regressive Changes in the Superficial Layer of Human Articular Cartilage

By studying changes in the knee joint, Bennett, Waine, and Bauer (1942) were able to trace the development of osteo-arthritis. They showed that the condition initially affects the articular cartilage, a conclusion subsequently supported by Collins (1949). Osteo-arthritic fibrillation is the hallmark of the cartilage lesion. The fibrillated cartilage becomes soft and moist in texture. Chemical analysis shows it to be deficient in sulphated mucopolysaccharide (Matthews, 1953), and this depletion of mucopolysaccharide ground substance is reflected in a loss of matrix staining with toluidine blue in fibrillated areas (Collins and McElligott, 1960). Fibrillation is at first confined to the superficial layer of the cartilage (Bennett and others, 1942; Collins, 1949). Subsequently it spreads more deeply, and, as it does so, the cartilage disintegrates until eventually the underlying bone is exposed. Subchondral bone changes, osteophyte formation, and capsular fibrosis are relatively late manifestations of the disease (Collins, 1949). The present study was undertaken to determine if changes can be detected in the superficial layer of adult articular cartilage before the onset of actual fibrillation and also in order to study the early stages of fibrillation as seen under the light microscope. Juvenile articular cartilage has been taken as our standard of healthy intact cartilage. It is apparent that the superficial layer of non-fibrillated adult cartilage often shows regressive changes, with depletion of matrix ground substance and evidence of nuclear degeneration. Actual fibrillation seems to develop as an extension of this regressive change.
Toward Neuroanatomical Models of Analogy: A Positron Emission Tomography Study of Analogical Mapping

Several brain regions associated with analogical mapping were identified using (15)O-positron emission tomography with 12 normal, high intelligence adults. Each trial presented during scanning consisted of a source picture of colored geometric shapes, a brief delay, and a target picture of colored geometric shapes. Analogous pictures did not share similar geometric shapes but did share the same system of abstract visuospatial relations. Participants judged whether each source-target pairing was analogous (analogy condition) or identical (literal condition). The results of the analogy-literal comparison showed activation in the dorsomedial frontal cortex and in the left hemisphere; the inferior, middle, and medial frontal cortices; the parietal cortex; and the superior occipital cortex. Based on these results as well as evidence from relevant cognitive neuroscience studies of reasoning and of executive working memory, we hypothesize that analogical mapping is mediated by the left prefrontal and inferior parietal cortices.
Leukocyte telomere length and mortality in the Cardiovascular Health Study.

BACKGROUND Leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is related to diseases of aging, but studies of mortality have been inconsistent. METHODS We evaluated LTL in relation to total mortality and specific cause of death in 1,136 participants of the Cardiovascular Health Study who provided blood samples in 1992-1993 and survived through 1997-1998. LTL was measured by Southern blots of the terminal restriction fragments. Cause of death was classified by a committee of physicians reviewing death certificates, medical records, and informant interviews. RESULTS A total of 468 (41.2%) deaths occurred over 6.1 years of follow-up in participants with mean age of 73.9 years (SD 4.7), 65.4% female, and 14.8% African American. Although increased age and male gender were associated with shorter LTLs, African Americans had significantly longer LTLs independent of age and sex (p < .001). Adjusted for age, sex, and race, persons with the shortest quartile of LTL were 60% more likely to die during follow-up than those within the longest quartile (hazard ratio: 1.61, 95% confidence interval: 1.22-2.12, p = .001). The association remained after adjustment for cardiovascular disease risk factors. Evaluations of cause of death found LTL to be related to deaths due to an infectious disease etiology (hazard ratio: 2.80, 95% confidence interval: 1.32-5.94, p = .007), whereas a borderline association was found for cardiac deaths (hazard ratio: 1.82, 95% confidence interval: 0.95-3.49, p = .07) in adjusted models. Risk estimates for deaths due to cancer, dementia, and ischemic stroke were not significant. CONCLUSION These data weakly corroborate prior findings of associations between LTL and mortality in the elderly.
Influence of genotype-environment interaction on the classification of Nellore bulls in Southern Brazil.

The aim of this study was to assess the occurrence of genotype-environment interaction, as well as its effects on the magnitude of genetic parameters and the classification of Nellore breeding bulls for the trait adjusted weight at 205 days (W205) on Southern Brazil. The components of (co)variance were estimated by Bayesian inference, using a linear-linear animal model in a bi-trait analysis. The proposed model for the analyses considers as random the direct additive genetic and maternal effects and residual effects, and as fixed effects the contemporary groups, sex, season of birth and weighing, and calving age as covariable (linear and quadratic effects). The a posteriori mean estimates of the direct heritabilities for W205 in the three States varied from 0.24 in Parana (PR) to 0.34 in Santa Catarina (SC). The estimates of maternal heritability varied from 0.23 in SC and Rio Grande do Sul (RS) to 0.28 in PR. The a posteriori mean distributions of the genetic correlation varied from 0.52 between SC and RS, to 0.84 between PR and RS, suggesting that the best breeding bulls in SC are not the same as in RS.
Endocrine modifications and interventions during critical illness

The ongoing hypermetabolic response in patients with prolonged critical illness leads to the loss of lean tissue mass. Since the cachexia of prolonged illness is usually associated with low concentrations of anabolic hormones, hormonal intervention has been thought to be beneficial. However, most interventions have been shown to be ineffective and their indiscriminate use even causes harm. Before considering endocrine intervention in these frail patients, a detailed understanding of the neuroendocrinology of the stress response is warranted. It is now clear that the acute phase and the later phase of critical illness behave differently from an endocrinological point of view. The acute stress reponse consists primarily of an actively-secreting pituitary in the presence of low circulating peripheral anabolic hormones, suggesting resistance of the peripheral tissues to the effects of anterior pituitary hormones. However, when the disease process becomes prolonged, there is a uniformly-reduced pulsatile secretion of anterior pituitary hormones with proportionally reduced concentrations of peripheral anabolic hormones. The origin of this suppressed pituitary secretion is located in the hypothalamus, as hypothalamic secretagogues can reactivate the anterior pituitary and restore pulsatile secretion. The reactivated pituitary secretion is accompanied by an increase in peripheral target hormones, indicating at least partial sensitivity of these tissues to anterior pituitary hormones in this chronic phase of illness. Thus, endocrine intervention with a combination of hypothalamic secretagogues that more completely reactivate the anterior pituitary could be a more physiological and effective strategy for inducing anabolism in patients with prolonged critical illness.
Skeletal muscle AMPK activation: mounting evidence against a role in substrate utilization during acute exercise

Since the seminal findings that pharmacological activation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) increases skeletal muscle glucose uptake and fatty acid oxidation (FAO), AMPK has gained considerable interest as a regulator of fuel utilization during exercise. This notion arises as the intensity-dependent increase in cellular metabolites (AMPfree, ADP) from ATP hydrolysis and the accumulation of intracellular calcium allosterically regulate AMPK to promote its phosphorylation by upstream kinases (LKB1, CaMKK). Pharmacological activation of AMPK has been shown to induce a myriad of cellular events, including glucose transporter type 4 (GLUT4) translocation to the plasma membrane to facilitate glucose uptake, as well as a co-ordination of several mechanisms up-regulating FAO, including fatty acid transport protein accumulation on the plasma membrane and reduced malonyl-CoA (MCoA) production from acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC). However, unlike direct pharmacological activation of AMPK, exercise is a robust physiological stimulus that simultaneously up-regulates numerous cellular processes. As a result, the necessity of AMPK for substrate utilization during exercise has been challenged, particularly as FAO and glucose uptake
Dissociation of Working Memory Processing Associated with Native and Second Languages: PET Investigation

Verbal working memory plays a significant role in language comprehension and problem-solving. The prefrontal cortex has been suggested as a critical area in working memory. Given that domain-specific dissociations of working memory may exist within the prefrontal cortex, it is possible that there may also be further functional divisions within the verbal working memory processing. While differences in the areas of the brain engaged in native and second languages have been demonstrated, little is known about the dissociation of verbal working memory associated with native and second languages. We have used H2(15)O positron emission tomography in 14 normal subjects in order to identify the neural correlates selectively involved in working memory of native (Korean) and second (English) languages. All subjects were highly proficient in the native language but poorly proficient in the second language. Cognitive tasks were a two-back task for three kinds of visually presented objects: simple pictures, English words, and Korean words. The anterior portion of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the left superior temporal gyrus were activated in working memory for the native language, whereas the posterior portion of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the left inferior temporal gyrus were activated in working memory for the second language. The results suggest that the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and left temporal lobe may be organized into two discrete, language-related functional systems. Internal phonological processing seems to play a predominant role in working memory processing for the native language with a high proficiency, whereas visual higher order control does so for the second language with a low proficiency.
Paradigmatic approaches used in enterprise resource planning systems research: A systematic literature review

The purpose of this paper is to determine the range of research paradigms employed in a smaller subset of Information Systems (IS) literature, namely Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. A systematic literature review based on papers that mentioned ERPs was drawn from eight of the most highly ranked journals according to their h-index. The findings indicate that the majority (96.6%) of the ERP research papers were conducted within a positivist research paradigm, which is a far higher proportion than is suggested by other research in the general IS literature (approximately 81%). This paper suggests that there is a strong case for ERP researchers to look at existing paradigm selection and how effectively their research relates to the ERP body of knowledge, especially in respect to the issues of importance to managers within organizations (notably social and change management issues). This research also identified areas where existing paradigm evaluation methods could be enhanced and refined in respect to non-positivist classifications.
Cloning and nucleotide sequence of the Myxococcus xanthus lon gene: indispensability of lon for vegetative growth

The lon gene of Escherichia coli is known to encode protease La, an ATP-dependent protease associated with cellular protein degradation. A lon gene homolog from Myxococcus xanthus, a soil bacterium which differentiates to form fruiting bodies upon nutrient starvation, was cloned and characterized by use of the lon gene of E. coli as a probe. The nucleotide sequence of the M. xanthus lon gene was determined. It contains an open reading frame that encodes a 92-kDa protein consisting of 817 amino acid residues. The deduced amino acid sequence of the M. xanthus lon gene product showed 60 and 56% identity with those of the E. coli and Bacillus brevis lon gene products, respectively. Analysis of an M. xanthus strain carrying a lon-lacZ operon fusion suggested that the lon gene is similarly expressed during vegetative growth and development in M. xanthus. In contrast to that of E. coli, the M. xanthus lon gene was shown to be essential for cell growth, since a null mutant could not be isolated.
Dementia with Lewy Bodies Versus Pure Alzheimer Disease: Differences in Cognition, Neuropathology, Cholinergic Dysfunction, and Synapse Density

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is the second leading cause of cognitive impairment among the elderly. While it is usually accompanied by the neocortical neuritic plaques (NP) and entorhinal neurofibrillary tangles (NFT) characteristic of Alzheimer disease (AD), and so can be construed as a Lewy body variant of AD (LBV), it also occurs in pure form as diffuse Lewy body disease (DLBD). We assessed cognitive status in 17 DLB patients (12 with LBV and 5 with DLBD) and compared the results with 12 AD subjects and 5 controls. We then sought to determine which neuropathologic abnormalities correlated with cognitive impairment. Among DLB cases, neocortical Lewy body (LB) counts, modified Braak stages of NFT burden in the entorhinal cortex, neocortical NP counts, and loss of choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) activity all correlated with dementia severity. Unlike AD, neocortical NFT and anti-synaptophysin reactivity were uncorrelated with DLB dementia. Despite comparable LB counts and ChAT losses, the DLBD were significantly less demented than the LBV patients. We conclude that neocortical LB and ChAT depletion contribute to cognitive impairment in DLB and that concomitant AD pathology in LBV, represented by higher Braak stages and NP, promotes increased dementia severity compared with that encountered in DLBD.
Left ventricular outflow tract obstruction and sudden death in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

We thank Maron et al . for their editorial on our paper.1,2 Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a capricious disorder, characterized by heterogeneity at all levels. Together with its relative rarity, this has resulted in a dearth of evidence-based practice. The authors suggest that cardiologists rely on guidance from a few major centres and imply that our paper is out of step with expert consensus. Unfortunately, in their effort to prevent overenthusiastic interpretation of our study, the authors create the impression that there are widely divergent approaches to risk stratification even within the expert community. It is accepted that the annual sudden death …
Immunostymulacja jako metoda ograniczenia niepotrzebnej antybiotykoterapii Immunostimulation as a method limiting unnecessary antibiotic therapy

Agnieszka Szczukocka-Zych, Marzena Bozio, Wojciech Feleszko © Pediatr Med Rodz 2015, 11 (4), p. 365–373 © Medical Communications Sp. z o.o. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (CC BY-NC-ND). Reproduction is permitted for personal, educational, non-commercial use, provided that the original article is in whole, unmodified, and properly cited. DOI: 10.15557/PiMR.2015. 0034 Received: 01.10. 2015 Accepted: 29.10. 2015 Published: 18.12. 2015 Agnieszka Szczukocka-Zych, Marzena Bozio, Wojciech Feleszko
Effectiveness of Bullying and Violence Prevention Programs

Workplace bullying is a significant occupational health problem worldwide. Nurses are vulnerable to workplace bullying. During interactions with staff nurses, occupational health nurses have crucial opportunities to identify victims of workplace bullying and provide effective techniques for preventing and managing workplace bullying behaviors. The purpose of this systematic review was to identify best practices for preventing and managing workplace bullying among staff nurses. The best method found to control and stop workplace bullying involves cognitive rehearsal of responses to common bullying behaviors. Translation of the 3-hour workplace bullying prevention and management program is discussed.
Chinese EFL Students' Perspectives on the Integration of Technology

This study explores the centrality of the technology integration to Chinese EFL students' experiences in College English instruction. Students involved in this qualitative and quantitative study described the effectiveness of Web-based instructional environments (WBIEs) facilitated by the WebNing course management systems. Sources that were used for data analysis include online survey and oral interviews. The study demonstrates that students perceive the advantages of using Web-based instruction (WBI). They feel that the WBI greatly enhances their experiences by (1) developing their writing skills through online essay, (2) improving their communication skills through online discussion and (3) providing greater learner autonomy. Besides, Web-based learning empowers students to be actively involved in the learning process and to be responsible for their own learning. The findings of this study provide a useful reference point for those educators contemplating the implementation of a web-based instruction.
Type I hypersensitivity reactions in intestinal mucosae from rats infected with Fasciola hepatica

Type I hypersensitivity reactions in the intestinal tract of sensitized animals may contribute to resistance to reinfection with Fasciola hepatica. Colonic mucosae isolated from previously infected rats were voltage clamped in Ussing chambers. Antigen was prepared as a crude homogenate from adult liver fluke. Assay of serum antibodies against fluke antigen confirmed sensitization. Antigen challenge evoked a rapid onset, transient inward current in sensitized but not in control preparations. Chloride secretion accounted for at least part of the response since the loop diuretic bumetanide reduced the effect of antigen by 61%. Anti‐rat IgE mimicked the response to antigen and desensitized tissues to subsequent antigen challenge. Local synthesis of eicosanoids may mediate the response to antigen since the cyclo‐oxygenase inhibitor piroxicam reduced the response by 76%. In contrast, mepyramine which is a histamine receptor antagonist did not alter the ion transport response evoked by antigen. Tetrodotoxin reduced the response to antigen by 53% implicating intrinsic neurons within the lamina propria as effector cells in the responses of this tissue to antigen. We propose that antigen stimulation of electrogenic chloride movement and consequent fluid secretion in vivo may contribute to a local effector mechanism in prevention of reinfection of previously sensitized hosts.
IVIG blocks complement deposition mediated by anti-GM1 antibodies in multifocal motor neuropathy

Background The pathogenesis of multifocal motor neuropathy (MMN) has yet to be established. MMN patients often carry anti-GM1 IgM antibodies, suggesting an autoimmune process involving complement. Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is the first line treatment, but its action mechanism is unknown. Objective To test whether anti-GM1 IgM antibodies in MMN sera activate complement, inducing and propagating the disease and whether IVIG inhibits complement activation, resulting in clinical improvement. Methods Sera with anti-GM1 IgM but not IgG or IgA reactivity were obtained from 13 patients with MMN. We tested whether their anti-GM1 IgM antibodies produced complement component deposits on GM1-coated microtiter plates and whether IVIG blocks such deposition. Results C1q, C4b, C3b and C5b-9 were deposited on GM1-coated wells. Their depositions were highly correlated with anti-GM1 IgM antibody titre. IVIG reduced the deposition of these complement components dose-dependently. Conclusions Anti-GM1 IgM antibodies bound to GM1 and activated complement in vitro. The results together with earlier data from our group suggest that IgM-induced, complement-mediated injury occurs at the nodes of Ranvier in peripheral motor nerves and generates conduction block and muscle weakness. In vitro IVIG inhibited this type of complement activation, suggesting that in vivo, the resulting reduction in membrane attack complex-mediated damage leads to improved muscle strength.
Tumor necrosis factor gene polymorphism and septic shock in surgical infection

ObjectivesTo evaluate the relationship of the genotype distribution of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-&agr; polymorphism with regard to the plasma TNF-&agr; concentration and the development of septic shock as well as mortality of infected patients in a surgical intensive care unit (SICU). DesignA total of 112 postoperative critically ill infected patients were prospectively enrolled. SettingSICU of a tertiary university-affiliated medical center. PatientsPatients who were consecutively admitted to the SICU because of surgical infection with sepsis. InterventionBlood sampling. Measurements and Main ResultsBlood sample was obtained 24 hrs after intensive care unit (ICU) admission or within 2 hrs after the onset of septic shock to determine the plasma TNF-&agr; level and to analyze the genotype of the biallelic polymorphism of the TNF-&agr;. ResultsThe allele frequency of the TNF2 in our infected ICU patients was 12%. Forty-two (37.5%) patients admitted fulfilled the criteria of septic shock during their ICU stay. Patients carrying the TNF2 allele were not more likely to develop septic shock, nor did they have a higher mortality rate. In the patients with septic shock, those carrying the TNF2 allele had a significantly higher mortality rate than those with the homozygous TNF1 genotype (92% vs. 62%, p < .05). In those who developed septic shock, the TNF2 allele was significantly associated with higher TNF levels. ConclusionIn patients admitted to SICU with surgical infection, the frequency of TNF2 allele was higher than in the general population. SICU patients with TNF2 allele did not show a higher incidence of developing septic shock, nor was there a higher baseline TNF-&agr; level after infection. However, once septic shock had developed, the mortality rate was higher in those patients carrying the TNF2 allele.