Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
LZF1/SALT TOLERANCE HOMOLOG3, an Arabidopsis B-Box Protein Involved in Light-Dependent Development and Gene Expression, Undergoes COP1-Mediated Ubiquitination[W]

B-box containing proteins play an important role in light signaling in plants. Here, we identify LIGHT-REGULATED ZINC FINGER1/SALT TOLERANCE HOMOLOG3 (STH3), a B-box encoding gene that genetically interacts with two key regulators of light signaling, ELONGATED HYPOCOTYL5 (HY5) and CONSTITUTIVE PHOTOMORPHOGENIC1 (COP1). STH3 physically interacts with HY5 in vivo and shows a COP1-dependent localization to nuclear speckles when coexpressed with COP1 in plant cells. A T-DNA insertion mutant, sth3, is hyposensitive to high fluence blue, red, and far-red light and has elongated hypocotyls under short days. Analyses of double mutants between sth3, sth2, and hy5 suggest that they have partially overlapping functions. Interestingly, functional assays in protoplasts suggest that STH3 can activate transcription both independently and together with STH2 through the G-box promoter element. Furthermore, sth3 suppresses the cop1 hypocotyl phenotype in the dark as well as the anthocyanin accumulation in the light. Finally, COP1 ubiquitinates STH3 in vitro, suggesting that STH3 is regulated by COP1. In conclusion, we have identified STH3 as a positive regulator of photomorphogenesis acting in concert with STH2 and HY5, while also being a target of COP1-mediated ubiquitination.
Is Foreign Aid Responsive to Environmental Needs and Performance of Developing Countries? Case Study of the Czech Republic.

This paper examines the responsiveness of foreign aid to environmental needs and performance of developing countries using, as an example, the Czech Republic. It focuses on the environmental component of foreign aid, which is defined as the development intervention of the Czech Government, which can be expected to have positive environmental impacts in target countries. The provision of environmental aid is based on the assumption that the Czech Republic has practical, transferable experience of qualitative improvements in the environment following the collapse of communist regime. Flows of environmental aid were determined by analyzing and categorizing individual development aid projects in the period 2000 to 2015. Regression analyses were employed to explain the pattern of Czech environmental aid allocations. The results show relatively limited reflection of the recipient’s environmental needs in the distribution of Czech environmental aid. Only two environmental objectives were significantly echoed in actual aid flows. The first was transfer of advanced environmental technologies and reductions in energy consumption, approximated by carbon dioxide emissions per capita. The second was protection of biodiversity, represented by the extinction risk of sets of species. The other five objectives did not play significant roles in environmental aid allocations. Above that, other factors not related to the environmental needs and performance of recipient countries affected Czech environmental aid. Among them, historical ties to other former communist countries were of high significance. The findings call into question the environmental objectives of Czech foreign aid and point to the need for transparent criteria for the allocation of environmental aid.
FRAXA and FRAXE: evidence against segregation distortion and for an effect of intermediate alleles on learning disability.

There have been several claims of segregation distortion (meiotic drive) for loci associated with diseases caused by trinucleotide repeats, leading us to test for this phenomenon in a large study of the X-linked loci FRAXA and FRAXE. We found no evidence of meiotic drive in females and no convincing evidence in males, where the limitation of risk to daughters creates a testing bias for alleles of interest. Alleles for pre- and full mutation, intermediate alleles, and common alleles were analyzed separately, with the same negative results that are extended in the discussion to claims of meiotic drive for other diseases. On the other hand, an excess risk of learning difficulties was confirmed for intermediate FRAXA alleles (relative risk, 2.58 +/- .74) and suggested for intermediate FRAXE alleles. The penetrance of learning difficulty is low, the risk being estimated as . 039 for FRAXA common alleles and . 101 for intermediate alleles. Because of their lower gene frequency, full mutations are a less frequent cause of learning difficulty than intermediate alleles, which contribute . 0020 to total prevalence and . 0012 to attributable prevalence of learning difficulty.
Vitamin D supplementation improves FEV1 in patients of Bronchial Asthma

Background and Objective: Vitamin D deficiency has strong association with various respiratory disorders in which bronchial asthma is one of them. The objective was to determine the efficacy of vitamin D supplementation in cases with bronchial asthma. Methods: This case control study was conducted at private clinical set up of district, Rahim Yar Khan from August to October 2016 in which 100 cases of bronchial asthma were randomly divided into Group-A and Group-B each contained 50 patients. Group-A was given placebo and Group-B with vitamin D in a dose of 50,000 units per day orally. Both the groups were followed in terms of improvement in FEV1 at 1, 2 and 3 months. Results: There was no significant difference in both groups in terms of BMI and duration of asthma at start of study. The mean pre treatment vitamin D level of Group-A was 14.23±1.66 and of Group-B, 15.30±2.05 ng/dl (p= 0.23). FEV1 in pre treatment Group-A was 64.35±3.16 and of Group-B was 62.35±2.16 with p= 0.95. There was no significant difference in terms of FEV1 in both the groups at one month (p= 0.32). While at two months it was significantly higher in Group-B with p= 0.04. At 3 months the final outcome was seen where the post treatment FEV1 in Group-A was 66.13±2.75 and in Group-B, 75.15±2.04 with p value of 0.001. Conclusion: Vitamin D supplementation improves FEV1 significantly at two months and these can be even highly significant if it is extended up to 3 months.
Essays in macro finance

In the first paper of my dissertation I document that industries with low offshoring potential have 7.31% higher stock returns per year compared to industries with high offshoring potential, suggesting that the possibility to offshore affects industry risk. This risk premium is concentrated in manufacturing industries that are exposed to foreign import competition. Put differently, the option to offshore effectively serves as insurance against import competition. A two-country general equilibrium dynamic trade model in which firms have the option to offshore rationalizes the return patterns uncovered in the data: industries with low offshoring potential carry a risk premium that is increasing in foreign import penetration. Within the model, the offshoring channel is economically important and lowers industry risk up to one-third. I find that an increase in trade barriers is associated with a drop in asset prices of model firms. The model thus suggests that the loss in benefits from offshoring outweighs the benefits from lower import competition. Importantly, the model prediction that offshorability is negatively correlated with profit volatility is strongly supported by the data. In the second paper (co-authored with Andrea Tamoni and Alex Hsu) we study the impact of fiscal policy shocks on bond risk premia. Government spending level shocks generate positive covariance between marginal utility and inflation (term structure level effect) making nominal bonds a poor hedge against consumption risk leading to positive inflation risk premia. Volatility shocks to spending have strong slope effect (steepening) on the yield curve, producing positive nominal term premia. For level and volatility shocks to capital income tax, term structure level effects dominate, delivering negative risk premia. Fluctuations in term premia are entirely driven by volatility shocks. Lastly, fiscal shocks are amplified at the zero lower bound. The third paper (co-authored with Andrea Tamoni and Alex Hsu) discusses how risk aversion (RA) affects the macroeconomic response to uncertainty shocks. In the data, heightened level of RA during the 2008 crisis amplified the decline of output and investment by roughly 21% and 16%, respectively, at the trough of the recession. The degree of RA determines the impact of second moment shocks in DSGE models featuring stochastic volatility. Ceteris paribus, higher RA leads to stronger responses of macroeconomic variables to uncertainty shocks, making un certainty shocks as economically significant as level shocks. Conversely, elevated RA can amplify or dampen responses to level shocks depending on whether RA exaggerates or attenuates consumption growth expectations.
Light management in solar cells: Recent advances

Efficient light management is critical for the enhancement of the efficiency of solar cells. The performance of a solar cell is determined by the efficiency of the absorption process of light via excitation of electron-hole pairs and extraction of these generated charge carriers. The absorption, in turn, has a few limiting factors: one is related to the small size and acceptance angle of the active region, another to the reduced spectral sensitivity of the active material, which does not use a part of the solar radiation. Correspondingly, the energy harvesting may be improved in two ways: a) light trapping schemes may be adopted to make the cell “thicker” by exploiting scattering and/or reflection effects. Plasmonic structures, constituted by patterned metal films or nanoparticles, demonstrated to be very effective for directing and enhancing the incident light beam. b) up- and down-conversion processes may be exploited to convert the frequencies of the solar spectrum from near-mid-IR and from blue-UV regions, respectively, to the region of maximum absorption of the cell. Thin glassy or glass-ceramic films doped with rare earth ions proved to be very suitable for this purpose. Here, an overview of recent results achieved in the use of plasmonic structures by different research groups will be reported, and different approaches will be compared.
Presence of negative and positive cis-acting RNA splicing elements within and flanking the first tat coding exon of human immunodeficiency virus type 1

The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) RNA follows a complex splicing pathway in which a single primary transcript either remains unspliced or is alternatively spliced to more than 30 different singly and multiply spliced mRNAs. We have used an in vitro splicing assay to identify cis elements within the viral genome that regulate HIV-1 RNA splicing. A novel splicing regulatory element (SRE) within the first tat coding exon has been detected. This element specifically inhibits splicing at the upstream 3' splice site flanking this tat exon. The element only functions when in the sense orientation and is position dependent when inserted downstream of a heterologous 3' splice site. In vivo, an HIV-1 SRE mutant demonstrated a decrease in unspliced viral RNA, increased levels of single- and double-spliced tat mRNA, and reduced levels of env and rev mRNAs. In addition to the negative cis-acting SRE, the flanking 5' splice site downstream of the first tat coding exon acts positively to increase splicing at the upstream 3' splice sites. These results are consistent with hypotheses of bridging interactions between cellular factors that bind to the 5' splice site and those that bind at the upstream 3' splice site.
Impact of D-Vine Structure on Risk Estimation

In this paper, a sensitivity analysis using pair–copula decomposition of multivariate dependency models is performed on estimates of value-at-risk (VaR) and conditional value-at-risk (CVaR). To illustrate the results, we use four financial share portfolios selected to exemplify this purpose. For each share, we calculate filtered log returns using autoregressive moving average–generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity models and study their dependence. We analyze how selecting pairs of assets to define vines prior to pair–copula decomposition affects the estimated VaR and CVaR. Further, using bootstrap confidence intervals, we compare the results of different risk measures obtained by employing alternative measures of dependence to select the order in which the drawable vine (D-vine) is defined in different portfolios. Moreover, we carry out a simulation study to analyze the finite sample properties of the different criteria for selecting the pair–copula decomposition associated with the D-vine. We find some differences between the results obtained for VaR and CVaR.
Academic Achievement, Attendance, and School-Related Quality of Life in Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Objective: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and its treatment have the potential to disrupt school functioning. Some research suggests that youth with IBD may have increased absences, but little is known about other areas of school functioning or related factors. This study examined school functioning (absences, achievement, grade retention, special education, and school-related quality of life) in adolescents with IBD compared with healthy adolescents and investigated demographic, disease, and psychosocial variables as predictors. Methods: Participants were 92 adolescents 11 to 17 years (50 with IBD and 42 healthy) and parents who completed questionnaires assessing psychosocial and school functioning. Report cards and school absence information were obtained from schools. Results: Youth with IBD had poorer school functioning in all areas, although only absences were significantly different between groups. Among those with IBD, internalizing problems predicted absences, income and externalizing problems predicted grade point average, and parent marital status and somatic complaints predicted school quality of life. Disease factors, including but not limited disease activity, were not significant predictors. Conclusions: Adolescents with IBD are at risk for school difficulty, and demographic and psychosocial factors are better predictors than disease factors. Interventions aimed at improving behavioral/emotional problems may improve school functioning.
Communal Egg-laying In Reptiles And Amphibians: Evolutionary Patterns And Hypotheses

Communal egg-laying is widespread among animals, occurring in insects, mollusks, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds, just to name a few. While some benefits of communal egg-laying may be pervasive (e.g., it saves time and energy and may ensure the survival of mothers and their offspring), the remarkable diversity in the life histories of the animals that exhibit this behavior presents a great challenge to discovering any general explanation. Reptiles and amphibians offer ideal systems for investigating communal egg-laying because they generally lack parental carea simplification that brings nest site choice behavior into sharp focus. We exhaustively reviewed the published literature for data on communal egg-laying in reptiles and amphibians. Our analysis demonstrates that the behavior is much more common than previously recognized (occurring in 481 spp.), especially among lizards (N = 255 spp.), where the behavior has evolved multiple times. Our conceptual review strongly suggests that different forces may be driving the evolution and maintenance of communal egg-laying in different taxa. Using a game theory approach, we demonstrate how a stable equilibrium may occur between solitary and communal layers, thus allowing both strategies to co-exist in some populations, and we discuss factors that may influence these proportions. We conclude by outlining future research directions for determining the proximate and ultimate causes of communal egg-laying.
Executive Network Centrality and Stock Liquidity

We examine the relationship between stock market liquidity and the network centrality of firm executives. We find that firms whose executive officers are more central in the network of executives have narrower spreads and reduced stock liquidity costs. We use an exogenous network centrality shock of executive turnover and report that liquidity improves after firms hire executives with greater centrality. We present evidence that improved liquidity is attributable to efficient information flows around executives in more advantageous network positions.
Mechanism-informed Repurposing of Minocycline Overcomes Resistance to Topoisomerase Inhibition for Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

Mechanism-inspired drug repurposing that augments standard treatments offers a cost-effective and rapid route toward addressing the burgeoning problem of plateauing of effective therapeutics for drug-resistant micrometastases. We show that the antibiotic minocycline, by its ability to minimize DNA repair via reduced expression of tyrosyl-DNA phosphodiesterase-1 (Tdp1), removes a key process attenuating the efficacy of irinotecan, a frequently used chemotherapeutic against metastatic disease. Moreover, minocycline and irinotecan cooperatively mitigate each other's undesired cytokine inductions of VEGF and IL8, respectively, thereby reinforcing the benefits of each modality. These mechanistic interactions result in synergistic enhancement of irinotecan-induced platinum-resistant epithelial ovarian cancer cell death, reduced micrometastases in the omenta and mesentery by >75%, and an extended overall survival by 50% in a late-stage peritoneal carcinomatosis mouse model. Economic incentives and easy translatability make the repurposing of minocycline as a reinforcer of the topoisomerase class of chemotherapeutics extremely valuable and merits further investigations. Mol Cancer Ther; 17(2); 508–20. ©2017 AACR.
The Emerging Lesbian: Female Same-Sex Desire in Modern China

In early 20th-century China, age-old traditions of homosocial and homoerotic relationships between women suddenly became an issue of widespread public concern. Discussed formerly in terms of friendship and sisterhood, these relations came to be associated with feminism, on the one hand, and psychobiological perversion, on the other - a radical shift whose origins have long been unclear. In this first ever book-length study of Chinese lesbians, Tze-lan D. Sang convincingly ties the debate over female same-sex love in China to the emergence of Chinese modernity. As women's participation in social, economic and political affairs grew, Sang argues, so too did the social significance of their romantic and sexual relations. Focusing especially on literature by or about women-preferring women, Sang traces the history of female same-sex relations in China from the late imperial period (1600-1911) through the Republiican era (1912-1949). She ends by examining the reemergence of public debate on lesbians in China after Mao and in Taiwan after martial law, including the important roles played by globalization and identity politics.
Histiocytic necrotizing lymphadenitis (Kikuchi–Fujimoto disease): continuing diagnostic difficulties

Aims: To describe the clinicopathological and immunophenotypic features of 25 cases of Kikuchi–Fujimoto disease (K–F), which remains a poorly recognized entity and is still frequently confused with malignant lymphoma, and to discuss the main diagnostic problems experienced by the referring pathologist.
Ashitaba (Angelica Keiskei) Exudate Prevents Increases in Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1 Induced by Obesity in Tsumura Suzuki Obese Diabetic Mice

ABSTRACT Angelica keiskei koidzumi (ashitaba) is consumed as a traditional folk medicine and health food in Japan. Ashitaba extract contains abundant flavonoids containing chalcones. Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) is the primary physiological inhibitor of tissue plasminogen activator. Excessive amounts of PAI-1 in plasma disrupt the fibrinolytic balance and promote a prothrombotic state with which thrombosis and cardiovascular diseases are associated. In the present study, we investigated the effects of ashitaba yellow exudate (AE) on enhanced PAI-1 levels in Tsumura Suzuki obese diabetic (TSOD) mice. AE significantly decreased food efficiency and plasma PAI-1 in TSOD mice but did not affect lean control Tsumura Suzuki nonobese (TSNO) mice. AE also decreased some parameters in the plasma, such as glucose, insulin, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and gains in body weight, subcutaneous, mesenteric fat weight in TSOD mice but had little effect on these parameters in TSNO mice. Levels of adipose PAI-1 were significantly higher in TSOD than in TSNO mice. Major sources of plasma PAI-1 are thought to be adipose tissue and liver. AE significantly suppressed PAI-1 protein levels in the livers of both TSOD and TSNO mice. These results suggest that AE decreased plasma PAI-1 levels by suppressing both the adipose tissue retention of PAI-1 protein and liver PAI-1 production in TSOD mice. Supplementing the diet with AE might help to prevent thrombotic diseases or alleviate the risk of thrombotic diseases as well as to suppress metabolic state in obese individuals.
Illness Perceptions Predict Cognitive Performance Validity

Abstract Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship of psychological variables to cognitive performance validity test (PVT) results in mixed forensic and nonforensic clinical samples. Methods: Participants included 183 adults who underwent comprehensive neuropsychological examination. Criterion groups were formed, that is, Credible Group or Noncredible Group, based upon their performance on the Word Memory Test and other stand-alone and embedded PVT measures. Results: Multivariate logistic regression analysis identified three significant predictors of cognitive performance validity. These included two psychological constructs, for example, Cogniphobia (perception that cognitive effort will exacerbate neurological symptoms), and Symptom Identity (perception that current symptoms are the result of illness or injury), and one contextual factor (forensic). While there was no interaction between these factors, elevated scores were most often observed in the forensic sample, suggesting that these independently contributing intrinsic psychological factors are more likely to occur in a forensic environment. Conclusions: Illness perceptions were significant predictors of cognitive performance validity particularly when they reached very elevated levels. Extreme elevations were more common among participants in the forensic sample, and potential reasons for this pattern are explored. (JINS, 2018, 24, 1–11)