Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Molecular quantitation of H 9 N 2 avian influenza virus in various organs of broiler chickens using TaqMan real time PCR

During the past decade, H9N2 low pathogenic avian influenza virus (LPAI) has caused considerable economic loss due to decreased production, increased mortality and the cost of vaccination in Iranian poultry industry. Because of widespread occurrence of this disease and the virus potential to mutate to highlypathogenic (HP) form and transmission to humans, it is, therefore, imperative to understand the pathogenesis and properties of these viruses. In this study, a two step TaqMan real time PCR assay was performed for the quantitation of A/chicken/Iran/772/1998(H9N2) virus in various organs of broiler chickens at different days post inoculation (DPI). Forty 5-week-old commercial broiler chickens were inoculated with the virus. Five chickens were randomly selected on days 1, 3, 6 and 9 PI. Their trachea, lungs, spleen, kidneys, pancreas, blood and faeces were collected for virus detection. A PCR test was performed and the positive samples were used for quantitative real time PCR assay. The result of RT-PCR assay showed the presence of the virus in trachea (40%, 33%), lungs (20%, 66.6%) and spleen (20%, 50%) of infected chickens on days 3 and 6 PI, respectively. The virus was also detected in the kidneys of inoculated chickens on 3 (40%), 6 (60%) and 9 (100%) DPI. In faecal samples the virus was only detected on day 6 PI (83.3%). The molecular quantitation of AIV showed that the AIV titre in the trachea, lungs and spleen of chickens at 3 DPI is lower than the AIV titre at 6 DPI in these organs. The highest titre was observed in the faeces. The AIV titre in all organs of the birds which died at 6 DPI was higher than those of the same organs in the other experimental birds.
USE OF ASH AND NITROGEN CONCENTRATIONS IN MANURE TO ESTIMATE LOSS OF AMMONIA OVER TIME A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

ii Acknowledgments. v Vita . vi List of Tables . viii List of Figures . ix Chapter 1. Literature review . 1 Factors Affecting Partitioning of Excretion of N between Urine and Feces . 2 Crude Protein Source . 2 Dietary CP Concentration . 4 Type of Protein . 5 Carbohydrate Source and Processing . 6 Ionophores. 7 Factors Affecting Partitioning of Excretion of Minerals between Urine and Feces . 8 Chapter 2. Use of ash and nitrogen concentrations in manure to estimate loss of ammonia over time . 1
Institutional Repository Encoutered Problems and Outcome Status in Nascent Entrepreneurship

The relationship between outcome status and encountered problems in the business start-up process is investigated. Contrary to expectations, we find that starters do not substantially differ from quitters in number and type of problems encountered, and that problems encountered generally do not affect outcome status. This research is based on a sample of 414 Dutch nascent entrepreneurs followed over a three year period. Its design is comparable to the U.S. PSED (Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics). Acknowledgement: Participants of the PSED workshop held in Charleston, October 2007, provided valuable feedback on an earlier version. In this workshop ten research projects, all using PSED data, were discussed in a collective effort to improve the quality of our work. The present paper has been written in cooperation with the research program SCALES, carried out by EIM and financed by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs.
A DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF FIRM GROWTH IN SWEDISH BANKING

This paper examines the firm size-growth relationship using a balanced panel of surviving Swedish banks spanning the post-regulatory reform period (1995-2002). Univariate as well as multivariate tests of the law of proportionate effect (LPE) are performed, using a recently developed dynamic panel econometric method, i.e. the GMM-system estimator. Regardless of model specification (univariate, bivariate or multivariate) the LPE is always accepted. In the multivariate specification, all firm performance indicators turned out to be insignificant. Hence stochastic rather than systematic factors determined growth performance during the period under consideration. JEL classification: C23; G21; L11.
lignite combustion through dynamic CFD modelling analysis

10 A dynamic CFD model, which is based on the inertia impaction, the thermophoresis and the direct 11 alkali vapour condensation incorporating the influence of the heat transfer to the tube, has been developed 12 for predicting the ash deposition formation in Zhundong lignite combustion in a pilot-scale furnace. The 13 results show that particle deposition from the inertia impaction and the thermophoresis dictates the ash 14 deposition formation under high furnace temperatures. The deposition caused by the direct alkali vapour 15 condensation is less significant. As deposition time increases, particle impaction efficiency decreases and 16 sticking efficiency increases due to the thermophoresis and the local temperature conditions, which result 17 in the time-dependent behaviour of the deposition growth. In addition, the ash deposition characteristics 18 are influenced under different furnace temperatures, due to the change in the particle impaction and 19 sticking behaviours. Qualitative agreement is obtained between the predicted results and the measurements 20 for the heat flux to the tube and the ash deposition growth. 21
Nationality matters : The geographic origin of multinationals and the productivity of their foreign affiliates

While quantifying the foreign ownership premium has received a lot of attention in the empirical literature, there is only little known about productivity variations between foreign affiliates of multinational firms. In order to enhance the understanding of the economic causes of this heterogeneity we analyze the impact of various institutional and economic characteristics of the countries in which the multinational parent companies are located on the productivity of their affiliates. Using a full record of the population of foreignowned affiliates in Germany we find that affiliates’ mean performances differ markedly when grouped by the country of their parent firm. We show that gravitational forces and institutional characteristics of the country of the parent, such as the availability of credit and the freedom to trade internationally, co-determine the foreign-owned affiliates’ performances in a significant way. Moreover, the intensity of the impact depends on the intensity of the ownership link between the parent and its affiliate. Some residual impact of nationality remains. JEL-Codes: F2, O2, O1
Role of wild ‐ type p 53 ‐ induced phosphatase 1 in cancer ( Review )

Wild-type p53-induced phosphatase (Wip1) is a member of the protein phosphatase type 2C family and is an established oncogene due to its dephosphorylation of several tumor suppressors and negative control of the DNA damage response system. It has been reported to dephosphorylate p53, ataxia telangiectasia mutated, checkpoint kinase 1 and p38 mitogen activated protein kinases, forming negative feedback loops to inhibit apoptosis and cell cycle arrest. Wip1 serves a major role in tumorigenesis, progression, invasion, distant metastasis and apoptosis in various types of human cancer. Therefore, it may be a potential biomarker and therapeutic target in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Furthermore, previous evidence has revealed a new role for Wip1 in the regulation of chemotherapy resistance. In the present review, the current knowledge on the role of Wip1 in cancer is discussed, as well as its potential as a novel target for cancer treatment and its function in chemotherapy resistance.
1 Living Soil for a Sustainable Future : Cover Crop Effects on Soil Health and Productivity

Agricultural land management practices impact the physical, chemical, and biological characteristics of soil, including the structure of the community of microorganisms present in the soil. The community of soil microorganisms, in turn, directly influences processes such as nutrient cycling and water infiltration and retention, which shape the long-term fertility and productivity of an agricultural landscape. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of cover cropping on the soil biological and chemical features that contribute to soil fertility. The study looked at two summer cover crops – cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) and sorghum-sundangrass (Sorghum xdrummondii) in comparison with no-cover control – and their effects on soil respiration, soil organic matter and nitrogen availability, and lettuce production. Using soil samples taken from the in-field experiment, a parallel laboratory aerobic incubation study was conducted to examine the effects of the cover crop treatments on the transformation of nitrogen over five weeks. Both cover crops significantly increased soil organic matter, total organic carbon, and extractable potassium and magnesium by over 17% compared to the nocover crop control. Cowpea significantly increased extractable soil nitrate and respiration rate compared to the no-cover control. Cowpea also resulted in the largest lettuce crop production as measured by both fresh weight and leaf area, but not different from the nocover control. Sorghum-sudangrass decreased extractable soil nitrate concentration as well as lettuce fresh weight and leaf area compared to the control and cowpea. In conclusion, the study found that sorghum-sudangrass and cowpeas both increased soil organic matter, but only cowpea increased extractable inorganic N and lettuce production for sandy loam soils in the Mid-Atlantic and should be considered for these vegetable cropping systems.
BANACH MODULE VALUED SEPARATING MAPS AND AUTOMATIC CONTINUITY

For two algebras A and B, a linear map T : A −→ B is called separating, if x · y = 0 implies Tx · Ty = 0 for all x, y ∈ A. The general form and the automatic continuity of separating maps between various Banach algebras have been studied extensively. In this paper, we first extend the notion of separating map for module case and then we give a description of a linear separating map T : B −→ X , where B is a unital commutative semisimple regular Banach algebra satisfying the Ditkin’s condition and X is a left Banach module over a unital commutative Banach algebra. We also show that if X is hyper semisimple and T is bijective, then T is automatically continuous and T−1 is separating as well.
Refit your Encoder when New Data Comes by

Deep latent variable models (DLVMs) are flexible generative models whose likelihood is often intractable. Such models can be trained thanks to an encoder (or inference network) that plays the role of an approximation of the posterior distribution of the latent variables. Conveniently, this encoder can also be used to estimate the likelihood, by using it as a proposal in importance sampling. When assessing the likelihood of out-of-sample data, it is common practice not to refit the encoder to the new data. We point out the drawbacks of this practice and advocate for refitting the encoder as a simple refinement the popular importance sampling estimate of the likelihood. 1 Deep latent variable models and their likelihood Deep latent variable models (DLVMs, Rezende et al., 2014; Kingma and Welling, 2014) are generative models that draw their flexibility from deep architectures. DLVMs assume that (xi, zi)i≤n ∈ (X × R) are i.i. d. random variables driven by the following generative model: { z ∼ p(z) pθ(x|z) = Φ(x|fθ(z)). (1) The low-dimensional hidden codes z ∈ R are passed though a function fθ : R → H , called the decoder or generative network, parametrised by a neural network whose weights are stored in θ ∈ Θ. The set (Φ(·|η))η∈H , called the observation model, is a parametric family of densities with respect to a dominating measure (usually the Lebesgue or the counting measure). The marginal distribution of the data is then a rather difficult quantity to compute because of the integration over the latent space. Consequently, Monte Carlo estimation though importance sampling is often performed to estimate the likelihood. The optimal proposal for importance sampling would be the posterior distribution of the code, which is also likely not to be amenable. However, this complex posterior can be approximated by a tractable conditional distribution qγ(z|x) = Ψ(z|gγ(x)), where (Ψ(·|κ))κ∈K is a family of densities over R, and gγ : X → K is a neural network called the encoder, or inference network, whose weights are stored in γ ∈ Γ. Conveniently, estimates of both θ and γ can be found by maximising the function
Do ' liberal market economies ' really innovate more radically than ' coordinated market economies ' ? Hall &

In their influential book Varieties of Capitalism; The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, Peter A. Hall and David Soskice argue that the technological specialization patterns of developed countries are largely determined by the “varieties of capitalism” prevailing in these countries. They hypothesize that “liberal market economies” (LMEs) specialize in radical innovation, while “coordinated market economies” (CMEs) focus more on incremental innovation. We argue that Hall and Soskice’s empirical test of this hypothesis is fundamentally flawed and propose a more appropriate and rigorous test of their conjecture, based on patent citation data. The manufacturingwide industry-level results indicate that the hypothesis does not survive further scrutiny.
Anorogenic alkaline granites from northeastern Brazil : major , trace , and rare earth elements in magmatic and metamorphic biotite and Nama ® c minerals q

The anorogenic, alkaline silica-oversaturated Serra do Meio suite is located within the Riacho do Pontal fold belt, northeast Brazil. This suite, assumed to be Paleoproterozoic in age, encompasses metaluminous and peralkaline granites which have been deformed during the Neoproterozoic collisional event. Preserved late-magmatic to subsolidus amphiboles belong to the riebeckite±arfvedsonite and riebeckite± winchite solid solutions. Riebeckite±winchite is frequently rimmed by Ti±aegirine. Ti-aegirine cores are strongly enriched in Nb, Y, Hf, and REE, which signi®cantly decrease in concentrations towards the rims. REE patterns of Ti-aegirine are strikingly similar to Ti-pyroxenes from the Ilõ Âmaussaq peralkaline intrusion. Recrystallisation of mineral assemblages was associated with deformation although some original grains are still preserved. Magmatic annite was converted into magnetite and biotite with lower Fe/(Fe 1 Mg) ratios. Recrystallised amphibole is pure riebeckite. Magmatic Ti±Na-bearing pyroxene was converted to low-Ti aegirine 1 titanite ^ astrophyllite/aenigmatite. The reaction riebeckite 1 quartz! aegirine 1 magnetite 1 quartz 1 ̄uid is also observed. Biotite and Na-ma®c minerals recrystallised under metamorphic oxidising conditions corresponding to temperatures of 6008C between the NiNiO and HM buffers. q 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
The critical success factors for organizational performance of SMEs in Malaysia : a partial least squares approach May

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the relationship between the determinants of organizational performance such as top management support, customer focus, employees’ orientation, technology orientation, and entrepreneurial orientation in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative research design was applied for this study. Data was collected through survey questionnaires applied to business owners and senior managers working in SMEs located in three Malaysian states, using purposive sampling technique. SmartPLS 2.0 (M3) was applied to test the hypotheses. Findings – The findings suggest that both technology and entrepreneurial orientations are significant success factors for SMEs in terms of financial and non-financial performance. In addition, top management support is found to be significantly and positively related to financial performance. Originality/value – The empirical analysis indicates that technology orientation and entrepreneurial orientation add more value to organizational performance. Therefore, it is vital for SMEs to focus on these two critical success factors in order to improve their performance.
Title The roles of TNF-α and the soluble TNF receptor I on sleep architecture in OSA Permalink

Objective Patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) have been described to have increased levels of inflammatory cytokines (particularly TNF-α) and have severely disturbed sleep architecture. Serum inflammatory markers, even in normal individuals, have been associated with abnormal sleep architecture. Not much is known about the role the TNF receptor plays in the inflammation of OSA nor if it is associated with changes in sleep architecture or arousals during the night. We hypothesized that the TNF receptor might play an important role in the inflammation as well as sleep architecture changes in patients with OSA. Design Thirty-six patients with diagnosed (AHI>15) but untreated OSA were enrolled in this study. Baseline polysomnograms as well as TNF-α and soluble TNF receptor I (sTNF-RI) serum levels were obtained on all patients. We evaluated the association between serum levels of TNF-α and sTNF-RI with various polysomongraphic characteristics, including sleep stages and EEG arousals. Results sTNF-RI levels were significantly correlated with snore arousals (r value 0.449, p value 0.009), spontaneous movement arousals (r value 0.378, p value 0.025), and periodic limb movement arousals (r value 0.460, p value 0.008). No statistically significant correlations were observed with TNF-α to any polysomnographic variables. To control for statistical significance with multiple comparisons, a MANOVA was performed with TNF-α and sTNFRI as dependent variables and sleep architecture measures and arousals as independent variables. The model for sTNF-RI was statistically significant (F value 2.604, p value 0.03), whereas the model for TNF-α was not, suggesting sleep quality significantly affects sTNF-RI. Hierarchal linear regression analysis demonstrated that sTNF-RI was independently associated with spontaneous movement arousal index scores after controlling for age, body mass index, and sleep apnea severity. Conclusions These findings suggest that sTNF-RI is associated with arousals during sleep, but not with other measures in patients with OSA.
DOES MANURE MANAGEMENT REGULATION WORK AGAINST AGGLOMERATION ECONOMIES?

The well-known increase in the geographical concentration of hog production suggests the presence of agglomeration economies related to spatial spillovers and inter-dependencies among industries. In this paper, we examine whether regulation of manure management that limits manure application per acre may weaken productivity gains arising from the agglomeration process. We develop a model of production showing the ambiguous spatial effect of environmental regulation. Indeed, while environmental regulation triggers dispersion when manure is applied to land as a crop nutrient, it also prompts farmer to adopt manure treatment that favors agglomeration of hog production. Estimations of a reduced form of the spatial model with a spatial HAC procedure applied to data for French hog production for 1988 and 2000 confirm the ambiguous effect of regulation of manure management. It does not prevent spatial concentration of hog production, and even boosts the role played by spatial spillovers in the agglomeration process. JEL Classification: Q10, Q53, R12
Optimising the adjustment of label-recommended dose rate for orchard spraying

Concern for human safety and environmental contamination due to the inefficient use of plant protection products for orchard spraying has resulted in a range of practical models aimed at minimising the orchard-to-orchard variation of deposit through suitable adjustment of the label-recommended dose rate (LRDR) to different crop structure parameters. This study establishes a methodology for optimising model selection by using an appropriate database of crop structure measurements. LIDAR recordings of different orchards at different farms and growth stages have been used to construct an exemplar database of UK pome fruit structures. These recordings were processed initially to reduce each database entry to a set of four parameters describing the tree-row structure, namely: spacing, height, width and area-density. An exact model of LRDR adjustment, assuming minimum spray volume loss and based on all four tree-row structure parameters, was used as a comparator to evaluate the relative performance of different approximation models (i.e. typical regression models based on a reduced set of tree-row parameters). Various approximation models that included the scaling effects of treerow area-density gave significant agreement with the population of LRDR adjustments predicted by the exact model. The following models gave the best agreement in their class for the percentage of adjustments correctly predicted to within an error tolerance 71/8th LRDR (i.e. 80% for the tree-row area-density model and 93% for the combined adjustment model based on tree-row height and areadensity). Other approximation models of practical interest gave less significant agreement with the exact model (i.e. 66% for the tree-rowvolume model, 55% for the fruit-wall-area model, 50% for the constant adjustment model, 5% for no adjustment). Unfortunately, the practice of LRDR adjustment is currently undermined by many plant protection products that do not give the appropriate reference conditions necessary to define the worst-case crop structure for which acceptable biological performance may be achieved at the full LRDR. Only products aimed at uses in conjunction with integrated pest management schemes give this type of information and typically for use with specific models of LRDR adjustment that ignore the important scaling effects of area-density. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH

How small is zero price? The true value of free products Kristina Shampan’er, MITIn a series of experiments, participants choose between buying a piece of high-end chocolate, buying a piece of low-end chocolate for a smaller price, and buying nothing. For some participants, both prices are equally reduced, so that the lower price becomes zero. A cost-benefit model predicts that the proportions of participants choosing each of the two chocolates should weakly increase when prices are equally reduced. In reality, whereas the proportion of participants choosing the cheaper chocolate dramatically increases, the proportion of participants choosing the more attractive chocolate dramatically decreases. Several economic and psychological explanations for the effect are considered.