Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differences in tissue fatty acid composition between reared and wild sharpsnout sea bream, Diplodus puntazzo (Cetti, 1777)

The fatty acid composition and lipid content of white muscle, liver and mesenteric fat, in reared v. wild sharpsnout sea bream (Diplodus puntazzo) were compared. The mesenteric fat index (100×mesenteric fat weight/body weight) and the lipid contents of both white muscle and liver proved consistently higher in farmed v. wild sharpsnout sea bream (79·0 (SE 13·1) V. 38·7 (se 5·1) g/kg, 188·4 (se 30·0) v. 58·2 (se 3·9) g/kg and 27·2 (se 3·7) v. 17·3 (se 1·9) g/kg, respectively). The higher values of linoleic, eicosapentaenoic, docosahexaenoic and n-3 series acids in reared fish muscle make reared sharpsnout more favourable for human consumption. In reared fish mesenteric fat, polyunsaturated fatty acids reached higher levels (32·54 (se 0·71) g/100 g total fatty acids than those found in wild fish (26·08 (se 1·38) g/100 g total fatty acids or even present in the diet (28·34 g/100 g total fatty acids). Compared with cultured fish, wild sharpsnout displayed a higher content of n-3 fatty acids in liver fat (31·67 (se 1·13) g/100 g total fatty acids), but lower in mesenteric fat (20·35 (se 1·41) g/100 g total fatty acids). Atherogenic index values were similar for wild and reared fish in all tissues, while the index of thrombogenicity of muscle and mesenteric fat (0·353 (se 0·012) and 0·402 (se 0·021) respectively) was significantly increased in wild fish probably due to the omnivorous habits of the species and/or to seasonal food variations. Depending on the time of the year or the season, reared fish could be more suitable for human consumption than wild fish.
An update on the use of tumor necrosis factor alpha inhibitors in the treatment of ankylosing spondylitis

ABSTRACT Introduction: Ankylosing spondylitis is a chronic immune-mediated disease affecting the sacroiliac joints and the spine manifesting with new bone formation and osteopenia. Over the past decade, tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) inhibitors (TNFi) have become the cornerstone for therapy in improving functional outcomes, and decreasing disease activity in patients with a marginal benefit from non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) therapy. At this time, it remains to be determined whether these agents decrease new bone formation, although some studies have recently suggested that. Areas covered: In this review we discuss the factors that favour a good response to these agents both initially and during maintenance, and some of the more recent studies outlining strategies for dose reduction. Expert commentary: Finally, we discuss the importance of using more objective tools for disease activity, such as magnetic resonance imaging, as a complementary tool for clinical assessments in both predicting responses to treatment but also in selecting patients most suited for targeted therapy.
Effect of benzylaminopurine (BAP) pulsing on in vitro shoot multiplication of Musa acuminata (banana) cv. Berangan

MS (Murashige and Skoog) media supplemented with benzylaminopurine (BAP) showed that the number of bud formation in shoot cultures of Musa acuminata cv.Berangan during the initiation stage increased proportionately with the concentrations used (11, 22 and 33 μM). However, the highest concentration of BAP (33 μM) simultaneously increased the formation of abnormal shoots. After the first apical bud appeared, explants were transferred to MS medium with lower concentrations of BAP either with or without indole acetic acid (IAA). Proliferation media supplemented with IAA showed enhanced shoot multiplication and elongation but did not help to reduce the abnormality index that occurred.
Ascorbic acid prevents corneal ulceration and perforation following experimental alkali burns.

Depressed aqueous humor glucose and ascorbic acid levels returned to control values within 14 days following a 20 sec, 6 mm. diameter, 1N sodium hydroxide burn of the rabbit cornea. These corneas did not ulcerate or perforate. After a 20 sec. , 12 mm. diameter, 1N sodium hydroxide burn, aqueous humor glucose levels returned to normal values, but ascorbic acid levels remained significantly depressed for up to 30 days. These corneas became markedly ulcerated in about 60 per cent of animals and frequently perforated. Following 12 mm. alkali burns, rabbits treated daily with 1.5 Gm. of subcutaneous ascorbic acid rarely developed corneal ulcerations and the corneas did not perforate. It is suggested that exogenous maintenance of adequate aqueous humor levels of ascorbic acid overcomes the relatively scorbutic state of the anterior segment induced by a 12 mm. alkali burn, thereby impairing the development of corneal ulceration and perforation. Elevated aqueous humor levels of ascorbic acid had no influence on corneal epithelial cell migration patterns following alkali burns.
Filling gap in incomplete contracts: an economic theory of default rules

The legal rules of contracts and corporations can be divided into two distinct classes. The larger class consists of "default" rules that parties can contract around by prior agreement, while the smaller, but important, class consists of "immutable" rules that parties cannot change by contractual agreement. ' Default rules fill the gaps in incomplete contracts; they govern unless the parties contract around them. Immutable rules cannot be contracted around; they govern even if the parties attempt to contract around them. For example, under the Uniform Commercial Code (U.C.C.) the duty to act in good faith is an immutable part of any contract,' while the warranty of merchantability is simply a default rule that parties can waive by agreement.3 Similarly, most corporate statutes
Online Homework Management Systems: Should we Allow Multiple Attempts?

Homework is increasingly being auto-administered online with systems that offer numerous assignment settings. This paper discusses the results of a quasi-experiment designed to evaluate student behavior under single and multiple attempt homework settings using an online homework management system. We explore whether or not multiple attempts lead to more effort and improved performance, and evaluate alternative, less desirable, behaviors that are potentially incentivized. We find that multiple attempts lead to “guessing” behavior and in turn grade inflation, hence improving scores without improving learning outcomes.
The Impact of Information System (IS) on Organziational Performace: With Special Refernce to Ethio-Telecom Southern Region, Hawassa

The Information System (IS) plays exactly the same role in the organization as the heart plays in our body. The system ensures that an appropriate data is collected from the various sources, processed, and sent further to all the needy destinations. The system is expected to fulfil the information needs of an individual, a group of individuals, the management functionaries. Virtually, no business or organization, large or small, can compete without information system. We truly live in a wired world! This study aims to assess impact of information system on organizational performance with special reference to Ethio-telecom Southern Region, Hawassa, Ethiopia. During the study both qualitative and quantitative date were collected from 45 administrative staffs via questionnaire. The staffs were selected randomly on the basis of disproportionate stratified technique by categorizing them into three strata (i.e. top, middle, and lower lever management). The collected data were analysed using SPSS (20 version). As a result, employees’ ethos toward information as critical asset is unsatisfactory, undermining the role of information system on organization endeavours, lack of top management to enhance the system are the chief problems in the organizations. On the other side, effective IS promotes organizational efficiency and effectiveness. Keywords: IS, IS in an organization, organizational performance
Human Resource Development in Tourism Industry

Tourism has emerged as an important socioeconomic activity. It is an important international industry and a leading economic driver of the 21st century service sector. Human Resource Development (HRD) is central to the sustainability-oriented tourism development initiative. It has been observed that over the years, there has been a change in the demand and supply pattern of human resources for the travel industry, with the demand in favor of more educated and specialized personnel. However, the development of human resources in tourism is subject to a number of obstacles, and is severely lagging in terms of professionalism. There is no evidence of any kind of HRD approach being followed by the tour operators/travel agencies. Skill shortage within the industry is an outcome of short-term management and lack of investment in people. The tourism workforce appears to be "uneducated, unmotivated, untrained, unskilled and unproductive". Thus, there is a need to enhance the image of the industry personnel through standard human resource management and development practices, which require the cooperation of the people involved in the tourism business. In this Paper an effort has been made to shed light on problems and challenges of HRD in the tourism industry in India.
The Defense Resource Allocation Process.

Abstract : Above all, this book is about DECISION MAKING. In particular, it attempts to describe the formalized process by which we in the United States make and implement decisions about resources for our national security. The purpose of this 'defense resource allocation' process is to most efficiently buy, operate, and support effective military forces to protect our national security interests.
Motivation modulates the effect of approach on implicit preferences

With three studies, we investigated whether motivational states can modulate the formation of implicit preferences. In Study 1, participants played a video game in which they repeatedly approached one of two similar beverages, while disregarding the other. A subsequent implicit preference for the target beverage emerged, which increased with participants’ thirst. In Study 2, participants approached one brand of potato chips while avoiding the other: Conceptually replicating the moderation observed in Study 1, the implicit preference for the approached brand increased with the number of hours from last food intake. In Study 3, we experimentally manipulated hunger, and the moderation effect emerged again, with hungry participants displaying a higher implicit preference for the approached brand, as compared to satiated participants. In the three studies, the moderation effect was not paralleled in explicit preferences although the latter were affected by the preference inducing manipulation. Theoretical implications and open questions are discussed.
Effect of sodium benzoate on blood ammonia response to oral glutamine challenge in cirrhotic patients: a note of caution

OBJECTIVE:The administration of sodium benzoate provides an alternative pathway for the disposal of waste nitrogen and this substance has been used to treat patients with urea cycle defects and more recently cirrhotics with hepatic encephalopathy. The aim of the study was to assess the ammonia-lowering effect of benzoate in cirrhotic patients without overt hepatic encephalopathy.METHODS:Glutamine challenge, a method to induce an increase of blood ammonia, was performed in six cirrhotics before and after 5 days of benzoate treatment (10 g/day). Number Connection Test and Posner's Attention Test were also performed before and after benzoate treatment.RESULTS:Blood ammonia increased after the glutamine load both before (from 66 ± 12 μg/dl to 123 ± 34 μg/dl and 179 ± 53 μg/dl after 30 and 60 min, respectively; ANOVA p= 0.0004) and after benzoate treatment (from 102 ± 27 μg/dl to 185 ± 49 μg/dl and 250 ± 39 μg/dl after 30 and 60 min, respectively; ANOVA p= 0.00001). However, after benzoate treatment, the basal values (102 ± 27 vs 66 ± 12 μg/dl; p= 0.01) and peak increments of ammonia (166 ± 56 μg/dl vs 102 ± 40 μg/dl; p= 0.04) were significantly higher than before. The Number Connection test and the Posner's test were not altered by benzoate treatment.CONCLUSIONS:Benzoate increased both the basal and postglutamine ammonia levels. These results confirm what has already been observed in experimental animals and suggest a note of caution in the use of sodium benzoate in cirrhotic patients.
Eugenol specialty chemical production in transgenic poplar (Populus tremula × P. alba) field trials

Summary A foundational study assessed effects of biochemical pathway introduction into poplar to produce eugenol, chavicol, p‐anol, isoeugenol and their sequestered storage products, from potentially available substrates, coniferyl and p‐coumaryl alcohols. At the onset, it was unknown whether significant carbon flux to monolignols vs. other phenylpropanoid (acetate) pathway metabolites would be kinetically favoured. Various transgenic poplar lines generated eugenol and chavicol glucosides in ca. 0.45% (~0.35 and ~0.1%, respectively) of dry weight foliage tissue in field trials, as well as their corresponding aglycones in trace amounts. There were only traces of any of these metabolites in branch tissues, even after ~4‐year field trials. Levels of bioproduct accumulation in foliage plateaued, even at the lowest introduced gene expression levels, suggesting limited monolignol substrate availability. Nevertheless, this level still allows foliage collection for platform chemical production, with the remaining (stem) biomass available for wood, pulp/paper and bioenergy product purposes. Several transformed lines displayed unexpected precocious flowering after 4‐year field trial growth. This necessitated terminating (felling) these particular plants, as USDA APHIS prohibits the possibility of their interacting (cross‐pollination, etc.) with wild‐type (native plant) lines. In future, additional biotechnological approaches can be employed (e.g. gene editing) to produce sterile plant lines, to avoid such complications. While increased gene expression did not increase target bioproduct accumulation, the exciting possibility now exists of significantly increasing their amounts (e.g. 10‐ to 40‐fold plus) in foliage and stems via systematic deployment of numerous ‘omics’, systems biology, synthetic biology and metabolic flux modelling approaches.
Participation of complement in host defense against capsule-deficient Haemophilus influenzae

To investigate the role of complement in immunity to capsule-deficient Haemophilus influenzae, rats were depleted of C3 with cobra venom factor and challenged with three different strains of capsule-deficient H. influenzae. Two of them (Rd and U1) did not elaborate type b capsular antigen, whereas the other (S2) elaborated 0.16% of the amount made by its type b parent strain. Depletion of C3 significantly enhanced early intravascular bacterial survival after intravenous inoculation and strikingly increased the susceptibility of rats to infection with capsule-deficient H. influenzae. After intraperitoneal inoculation with strain Rd or U1, C3-depleted rats developed bacteremia, whereas control rats did not; challenge with strain S2 resulted in transient bacteremia in normal rats and in death in C3-depleted animals. To determine whether the greater virulence of strain S2, as compared with strain Rd or U1, was accounted for by the small amounts of capsular antigen it elaborated, we also compared its relative virulence to that of three genetically closely related capsule-deficient variants elaborating either small amounts of type b capsule or producing no detectable b antigen. No difference in virulence was observed among these four variants; all C3-depleted rats inoculated developed bacteremia of similar magnitude followed by similar mortality rates. These studies demonstrate a significant role for complement in host defense mechanisms against capsule-deficient H. influenzae and suggest that interstrain differences of virulence are not attributable to residual elaboration of small amounts of type b capsule.
Stock Option Compensation in Finland: An Analysis of Economic Determinants, Contracting Frequency, and Design

This paper addresses several questions in the compensation literature by examining stock option compensation practices of Finnish firms. First, the results indicate that principal-agent theory succeeds quite well in predicting the use of stock options. Proxies for monitoring costs, growth opportunities, ownership structure, and risk are found to determine the use of incentives consistent with theory. Furthermore, the paper examines whether determinants of stock options targeted to top management differ from determinants of broad-based stock option plans. Some evidence is found that factors driving these two types of incentives differ. Second, the results reveal that systematic risk significantly increases the likelihood that firms adopt stock option plans, whereas total firm risk and unsystematic risk do not seem to affect this decision. Third, the results show that growth opportunities are related to time-dimensional contracting frequency, consistent with the argument that incentive levels deviate more rapidly from optimum in firms with high growth opportunities. Finally, the results suggest that vesting schedules are decreasing in financial leverage, and that contract maturity is decreasing in firm focus. In addition, both vesting schedules and contract maturity tend to be longer in firms involving state ownership.
Phylogenetic analyses within three sections of the genus Vicia

The averaged genomic similarities based on multilocus randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) were calculated for eight species representing three sections of the genus Vicia: faba, bithynica and narbonensis. The frequency of appearance of the sequences corresponding to 25 decamers selected at random from genomes of different Fabace species was checked, and a high correlation with the frequency observed for Vicia allowed us to assume their similar weight in typing Vicia species. The RAPD-based similarity coefficients compared with those related to whole genome hybridization with barley rDNA and those based on restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) revealed similar interspecies relationships. The averaged RAPD-based similarity coefficient (Pearson’s) was 0.68 for all the species, and was sectionspecific: 0.43 (bithynica), 0.50 (faba) and 0.73 (narbonensis). The averaged similarity coefficient for V. serratifolia (0.63) placed it apart from the rest (0.75) of its section. The results correspond to the interspecies relationships built upon non-genetic data. The averaged similarity coefficient for particular RAPD was related to the presence and type of tandemly repeated motif in a primer: 0.7–0.8 for heterodimers (GC, AG, CA, GT, CT), 0.5–0.6 for homodimers (CC, GG) and 0.6 for no repeat, indicating the sensitivity of diversity range to the type of target sequences.
The Impact of Earnings Management on the Value-Relevance of Financial Statement Information

This paper examines the relative value-relevance of both earnings and book value in the presence of three alternative sources of earnings management: short-term discretionary accruals, long-term discretionary accruals, and total discretionary accruals. For firm's whose discretionary accruals indicate earnings management, the value-relevance of earnings is expected to be lower than for firms without earnings management. Furthermore, in the presence of earnings management, it is expected that there will be a shift from a reliance on earnings to a reliance on book value in the valuation process. This would be reflected in a decrease in the value-relevance of earnings and an increase in the value-relevance of book value. Discretionary accruals are commonly used as a measure of earnings management. A contribution of this paper is the development of models to estimate short-term and long-term discretionary accruals. This enables investigation of differential effect on value-relevance of earnings management through the use of short-term versus long-term discretionary accruals. The results demonstrate that earnings management has an impact on value-relevance. Moreover, earnings management via long-term discretionary accruals has a greater impact on the value-relevance of earnings and book value than earnings management via short-term discretionary accruals.
Ovine coccidia in Papua New Guinea.

Eimeria oocysts were found in 89% of fecal samples collected from the rectum of 75 sheep from 3 locations in Papua New Guinea. Eighty five percent of the hosts which were positive for coccidia had multiple infections with up to 6 different species of Eimeria. In order of decreasing predominance in the 67 Eimeria-positive samples the species were: E. ovina (72%); E. parva (58%); E. ovinoidalis (48%); E. ahsata (45%); E. crandallis (39%); E. faurei (28%); E. intricata (24%); E. granulosa (4%). Fecal oocyst counts showed the highest mean of 1252 oocysts per gram (o.p.g.) for E. parva and a maximum of 8000 for E. ovina.
ABCA1 dimer–monomer interconversion during HDL generation revealed by single-molecule imaging

The generation of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), one of the most critical events for preventing atherosclerosis, is mediated by ATP-binding cassette protein A1 (ABCA1). ABCA1 is known to transfer cellular cholesterol and phospholipids to apolipoprotein A-I (apoA-I) for generating discoidal HDL (dHDL) particles, composed of 100–200 lipid molecules surrounded by two apoA-I molecules; however, the regulatory mechanisms are still poorly understood. Here we observed ABCA1-GFP and apoA-I at the level of single molecules on the plasma membrane via a total internal reflection fluorescence microscope. We found that about 70% of total ABCA1-GFP spots are immobilized on the plasma membrane and estimated that about 89% of immobile ABCA1 molecules are in dimers. Furthermore, an ATPase-deficient ABCA1 mutant failed to be immobilized or form a dimer. We found that the lipid acceptor apoA-I interacts with the ABCA1 dimer to generate dHDL and is followed by ABCA1 dimer–monomer interconversion. This indicates that the formation of the ABCA1 dimer is the key for apoA-I binding and nascent HDL generation. Our findings suggest the physiological significance of conversion of the ABCA1 monomer to a dimer: The dimer serves as a receptor for two apoA-I molecules for dHDL particle generation.
Why do Shareholders Value Marriage?

This paper shows that marriage can function in a similar way as mergers and acquisitions. To set up alliances that would benefit the firms, a controlling family would encourage their children to marry a person from a politically or economically powerful family. To test this hypothesis, we collect wedding announcements for the offspring of big-business owners in Thailand. The results from the event study show positive abnormal returns when the partner is from a well-connected family. The probit analysis shows that offspring are more likely to choose their partner from a well-connected family when the family's businesses are in the property and construction industries, based on state contracts, more diversified and heavily in debt. Overall, the results suggest that family networks might provide reputation capital, reliable information, and enforce contracts, thus reducing market frictions faced by entrepreneurs in weak institutional environments.