Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
GH Therapy in Noonan Syndrome: Review of Final Height Data

Background and Aims: Several studies, despite using small cohorts, have shown a short-term improvement in the height velocity of short children with Noonan syndrome (NS) when treated with recombinant growth hormone (GH). However, the question is whether or not this improvement is sustained until adult height is reached. This paper reviews the few studies reporting final height data of GH treatment in individuals with NS. Methods: Review of published papers from 4 main and several small studies with final height data after GH treatment in NS. Results: The range of height gain to adult age varies between 0.6 and 2.0 SDS, depending on genotype, age at start of treatment, duration of treatment and which growth charts are used. The younger the age at which treatment is started, the better the result. There seems to be a correlation between growth response and genotype, with a diminished growth response when the PTPN11 mutation is present. Conclusion: Data on the benefits of GH treatment during childhood and adolescence upon the final height are encouraging in individuals with NS. There is a substantial height gain during prepubertal years, which continues during the pubertal period, reaching a final height within the normal population in the majority of previously short individuals with NS.
The Impact of Macroeconomic Factors on Risks in the Banking Sector: A Cross-Country Empirical Assessment

This paper explores the links between macroeconomic conditions and individual bank risk. Using capital adequacy ratios as a broad measure of risk sustainability, a linear mixed effects model for a large international panel of banks for the years 2001-2005 is estimated. In OECD countries, banks tend to hold higher capital ratios during business cycle highs, this effect being even stronger for a subsample of EU banks. In non-OECD countries, periods of higher economic growth are associated with lower capital ratios. This indicates procyclical behavior. Banks accumulate risks more rapidly in economically good times and some of these risks materialize as asset quality deteriorates during subsequent recessions. Furthermore, higher inflation rates are associated with higher capital ratios of banks, implying that inflation-induced economic uncertainty stimulates banks to restrict credit. As far as regulatory and institutional environment is concerned, econometric estimates show that banks in non-OECD countries with deposit insurance tend to be more risky, whereas evidence of a negative relationship between concentration of the banking sector and banks’ risk taking is statistically less robust.
Optical and microstructural properties of MgF2 UV coatings grown by ion beam sputtering process

The optical, mechanical, and microstructural properties of MgF2 single layers grown by ion beam sputtering have been investigated by spectrophotometric measurements, film stress characterization, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), x-ray diffraction, and transmission electron microscopy. The deposition conditions, using fluorine reactive gas or not, have been found to greatly influence the optical absorption and the stress of the films as well as their microstructure. The layers grown with fluorine compensation exhibit a regular columnar microstructure and an UV-optical absorption which can be very low, either as deposited or after thermal annealings at very low temperatures. On the contrary, layers grown without fluorine compensation exhibit a less regular microstructure and a high ultraviolet absorption which is particularly hard to cure. On the basis of calculations, it is shown that F centers are responsible for this absorption, whereas all the films were found to be stoichiometric, in the limit o.
Visual processing of motion-defined form: selective failure in patients with parietotemporal lesions

The following psychophysical data were obtained from 13 patients with unilateral cerebral hemispheric lesions and 20 control subjects: speed thresholds for detecting and for recognizing motion-defined letters, speed thresholds for detecting coherent motion and for discriminating its direction, and visual acuity for recognizing letters of 96% and 11% contrast. Acuity was between 6/6 and 6/3 for all patients. Four patients showed a selective loss of ability to recognize motion-defined letters, while the ability to detect those same letters was spared, as was the ability to detect coherent motion and discriminate its direction (type I loss). Three patients showed a loss of ability both to recognize and to detect motion-defined letters, while the ability to detect coherent motion and discriminate its direction was spared (type II loss). All seven patients who failed to recognize motion-defined letters had extensive lesions in parietotemporal white matter underlying Brodmann cortical areas 18, 19, 37, 39, 21, and 22. The lesion was in the left hemisphere for three patients and in the right hemisphere for the remaining four. The region of overlap in these seven patients was not invaded by the lesion in any of the other six patients, and none of these six patients showed a loss of ability to recognize motion-defined letters. Three patients showed selective loss of acuity for low-contrast letters with normal Snellen acuity. The lesions in these three patients extended more posteriorly than in any other patient, and their region of overlap was in white matter underlying areas 18 and 19. We conclude that (1) the loss of ability to recognize letters in seven patients was specific to motion-defined letters rather than being a general loss of letter-recognition ability, (2) this visual loss was specific to motion-defined form rather than being a general failure of motion processing, and (3) the visual loss was not produced by lesions that did not involve the localized cerebral region specified above. To explain the existence of type I and of type II loss with sparing of the detection and discrimination of coherent motion, we propose that motion information is processed hierarchically. We further suggest that homologs of the socalled motion and color/form pathways (i.e., areas V1/MT/MST/7a and areas V1/V4/IT) are interconnected to form a distributed system that is important for the recognition of motion-defined form. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Exploring Flexitarianism : Meat Reduction in a Meat-Centred Food Culture

Broad scholarly consensus exists nowadays that high meat consumption is particularly critical from an ecological perspective. Traditionally, technological progress and efficiency innovations in food supply processes are identified as key to solving food sustainability problems. However, it is increasingly recognised that technological innovation and efficiency gains alone are not enough to reduce the environmental impacts of growing meat production and consumption. Therefore, this chapter's point of view is consumption-oriented. Are consumers part of the solution by making transitions towards more sustainable consumption patterns in general and less meat-centric diets specifically? This chapter explores flexitarianism as a present-day food style that consists of different forms or levels, ranging from minor adjustments to regular meat consumption patterns to fundamental departure from habitual meat eating practices.
Investment rigidity and policy measures

This paper assesses the impacts of decoupled government transfers on production decisions of a sample of Kansas farms. Our empirical analysis is based on a reduced-form application of the dual model of investment under uncertainty developed by Sckokai, which is extended to a consideration of irregularities in the capital stock adjustment cost function. To do so we adopt the threshold regression methods proposed by Hansen. The econometric results support the existence of three regimes characterised by different economic behaviour. Our analysis suggests that in a dynamic setting that allows for irregularities in the capital adjustment cost function, decoupled transfers can have a powerful influence on production decisions. The dynamics of the stock of capital cause this influence to grow over time. Oxford University Press and Foundation for the European Review of Agricultural Economics 2009; all rights reserved. For permissions, please email journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.
Social network analysis for Credit Risk Modeling

The modern society quest for credit has led to an increase in consumer credit uptake with proportionate increase in default rates. Some of the current credit risk models deteriorate over time and need frequent validation. This is due to use of historical data that is time dependent. The models lack the flexibility to take into account changes in economic and other extreme events. This research considers the use of social network data to offer an alternative approach in consumer credit scoring. Social data is widely available with vast amount of information due to increase in social network sites and technologies. This offers time dependent data that can be harnessed to develop time dependent models that do not need validation and will not deteriorate with time. Further, the poor and young consumers lack historical data and thus social data will cover that gap. The set of agents who are part of a network are also obligors in a loan portfolio with a financial institution. The key aim is to estimate credit risk in a loan portfolio based on the agents’ behavior at the network level. The agents interactions and cyclical inter dependencies in the social economic network are estimated to derive the social and economic factors. These factors are derived from the network matrices using singular value decomposition technique and scaled into (0, 1]. The scaled data forms the credit risk analysis factors that are used to learn and train the hidden Markov model. The model emits the credit quality levels, the dynamic threshold and the credit quality scores. These outputs are in turn used to estimate the model false rates and the obligors’ delinquent cases, default rate, stopping time and survival rates. The dynamic threshold is estimated at each time period to capture the dynamics of the credit quality of the obligors in the loan portfolio and emit the default and non-default rates. Obligors are classified into four credit quality levels; poor, average, good and excellent (PAGE). Obligors with average and good credit quality levels ranges between 61.5% and 89.3%
Selection on haemagglutinin imposes a bottleneck during mammalian transmission of reassortant H 5 N 1 influenza viruses

The emergence of human-transmissible H5N1 avian influenza viruses poses a major pandemic threat. H5N1 viruses are thought to be highly genetically diverse both among and within hosts; however, the effects of this diversity on viral replication and transmission are poorly understood. Here we use deep sequencing to investigate the impact of within-host viral variation on adaptation and transmission of H5N1 viruses in ferrets. We show that, although within-host genetic diversity in haemagglutinin (HA) increases during replication in inoculated ferrets, HA diversity is dramatically reduced upon respiratory droplet transmission, in which infection is established by only 1–2 distinct HA segments from a diverse source virus population in transmitting animals. Moreover, minor HA variants present in as little as 5.9% of viruses within the source animal become dominant in ferrets infected via respiratory droplets. These findings demonstrate that selective pressures acting during influenza virus transmission among mammals impose a significant bottleneck. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3636
FGFR4 Gly388Arg polymorphism may affect the clinical stage of patients with lung cancer by modulating the transcriptional profile of normal lung

The association of the fibroblast growth factor receptor 4 (FGFR4) Gly388Arg polymorphism with clinical stage and overall survival in a series of 541 Italian lung adenocarcinoma (ADCA) patients indicated a significantly decreased survival in patients carrying the rare Arg388 allele as compared to that in Gly/Gly homozygous patients [hazard ratio (HR) = 1.5; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.1–1.9], with the decrease related to the association of the same polymorphism with clinical stage (HR = 1.8, 95% CI 1.3–2.6). By contrast, no significant association was detected in small series of either Norwegian lung ADCA patients or Italian lung squamous cell carcinoma (SQCC) patients. Single nucleotide polymorphisms of known FGFR4 ligands expressed in lung (FGF9, FGF18 and FGF19) were not associated with clinical stage or survival and showed no interaction with FGFR4. Analysis of gene expression profile in normal lungs according to FGFR4 genotype indicated a specific transcript pattern associated with the allele carrier status, suggesting a functional role for the FGFR4 polymorphism already detectable in normal lung. These findings confirm the significant association of the FGFR4 Gly388Arg polymorphism with clinical stage and overall survival in an Italian lung ADCA population and demonstrate a FGFR4 genotype‐dependent transcriptional profile present in normal lung tissue. © 2009 UICC
Market Timing in Private Placements of Equity

In Chinese equity issues, long-term interval exists between initial announcement and execution due to regulatory process. Meanwhile, issuance prices of private placements are regulated not to fall below 90% of market prices at the announcement. We argue that Chinese firms conduct private placements to issue overpriced shares. Consistent with the hypothesis, we find that firms conducting private placements are more overvalued at the announcement and execution than non-equity issuers. Those firms experience significant stock price run-ups preceding the announcement and long-term under-performance following the execution. Meanwhile, private placements offer significantly greater discounts than public offerings do. Accordingly, firms with large overvaluation prefer public offerings to private placements. The finding suggests that Chinese firms encounter trade-off between guarantee of issuance price and discount costs in their choice of equity issue mode. Finally, we find that private issuers with large overvaluation can decrease discounts.
Short‐Term Foraging Costs and Long‐Term Fueling Rates in Central‐Place Foraging Swans Revealed by Giving‐Up Exploitation Times

Foragers tend to exploit patches to a lesser extent farther away from their central place. This has been interpreted as a response to increased risk of predation or increased metabolic costs of prey delivery. Here we show that migratory Bewick’s swans (Cygnus columbianus bewickii), though not incurring greater predation risks farther out or delivering food to a central place, also feed for shorter periods at patches farther away from their roost. Predictions from an energy budget model suggest that increasing metabolic travel costs per se are responsible. Establishing the relation between intake rate and exploitation time enabled us to express giving‐up exploitation times as quitting harvest rates (QHRs). This revealed that net QHRs were not different from observed long‐term net intake rates, a sign that the birds were maximizing their long‐term net intake rate. This study is unique because giving‐up decisions were measured at the individual level, metabolic and predation costs were assessed simultaneously, the relation with harvest rate was made explicit, and finally, short‐term giving‐up decisions were related to long‐term net intake rates. We discuss and conceptualize the implications of metabolic traveling costs for carrying‐capacity predictions by bridging the gap between optimal‐foraging theory and optimal‐migration theory.
Histopathological Effects of ZnO Nanoparticles on Liver and Heart Tissues in Wistar Rats

Considering the development of nanotechnology and extensive use of nano-materials are in different fields of industry, it is necessary to investigate their destructive effects on biological systems. Zinc oxide (ZnO) is used in the production of different dyes, cosmetics, ceramics, photocatalysts, water and sewage treatment and a lot of other products. In the present study, of different concentration of ZnO nanoparticles examined on heart and liver tissues of wistar rats. Rats were divided into four experimental groups including a healthy control group and gavaged daily for 14 days. Ascending concentrations of Nano-ZnO in groups one to three were from 100, 200 and 400mg/kg respectively. Blood samples were collected at day zero before the first gavage and day 14 after day 14. Liver and heart organs were dissected and fixed in 10% formline for pathological investigations. Increasing the concentration of Nano-ZnO induced two folds elevation of liver enzymes in plasma. Mild to moderate apoptosis were observed in groups one and two. Moderate to severe portal hepatitis and apoptosis appeared in the liver tissue of in groups two and three. Congested blood vessels were observed in both liver and heart tissues from all groups from mild to severe except the control group. In some cases focal necrotic hepatocytes and abnormality in fat distribution along with degeneration heart myofibrils accompanied with dense nuclei were distinguished. Results of the present study proved the toxicity of ZnO nanoparticles on the living organisms. So, further studies are recommended to predict ZnO toxicity.
Production of Pullulan From Beet Molasses and Synthetic Medium by Aureobasidium pullulans

The production of pullulan from molasses and synthetic medium by Aureobasidium pullulans P56 in batch culture was investigated. Among the pretreatments of molasses used to increase polysaccharide production, sulfuric acid + activated carbon treatment gave better results with regard to polysaccharide concentration, polysaccharide yield and sugar utilization. A maximum polysaccharide concentration of 21.4 g l-1 and a pullulan concentration of 16.7 g l-1 were obtained in synthetic medium whereas 35.0 g l-1 of polysaccharide and 16.9 g l-1 of pullulan were obtained in molasses medium containing 50 g l-1 of initial sugar at pH 7.5. The highest pullulan contents of the crude polysaccharide were 85.3 and 48.3% for synthetic medium and molasses medium, respectively and this showed that A. pullulans produced a mixture of pullulan and other polysaccharides in molasses medium. The experiments performed with synthetic medium showed that higher initial sugar concentrations led to a significant decrease in pullulan yield. A polysaccharide concentration of 20.4 g l-1 and a pullulan concentration of 6.6 g l-1 were obtained in a stirred tank bioreactor with synthetic medium. These concentrations were lower than those in shake flask culture.
Do prices in the unmediated call auction reflect insider information?: an experimental analysis

The unmediated call auction is a useful trading mechanism to aggregate dispersed information. Its ability to incorporate information of a single informed insider, however, is less well understood. We analyse this question by presenting a simple call auction game where both auction prices and limit prices of uninformed traders re? ect potential insider information. The predictions of the model are tested in the laboratory. While an insider improves the call auction outcomes in terms of increasing trading volume, uninformed traders fail to incorporate the (potential) insider information in their limit prices. We also derive an equilibrium relationship between auction returns and transaction costs similar to the relations that can be found in market microstructure models of continuous markets and which are commonly applied to estimate transaction costs. The experiment provides a good environment to assess the usefulness of this method to estimate transaction costs.
Consumer Preferences and Willingness to Pay for Bundled Fresh Produce Claims at Farmers’ Markets

ABSTRACT This study uses a conditional logit with systematically varying parameters model to analyze consumer survey data collected at farmers’ markets in Utah. The purpose of this study is to examine consumption preferences and willingness to pay for differentiated fresh produce among farmers’ market shoppers in Utah. Three primary differentiating claims, namely conventionally grown of unknown origin, conventionally grown local (in-state), and organically grown of unknown origin, are investigated. Results indicate that consumer preferences and willingness to pay are higher for the conventionally grown local origin claim, emphasizing the importance of local origin labeling for directed marketed fresh produce. This claim was especially preferred among frequent farmers’ market shoppers and those who spend above average. Those who receive WIC and/or food stamp benefits show lower preferences for fresh produce. The shoppers are significantly sensitive to price increases. This study implies that marketing strategies and policy regulations aiming at promoting local, organic, labeling, and reinforcing repeated farmers’ market customers can positively impact purchasing preferences and willingness to pay for production-method-based and origin labeled products.
A hospital-based domestic violence group.

OBJECTIVE This study of a public-hospital-based drop-in group for women who were victims of domestic violence sought to determine whether the group attracted clients from the target population of patients in the medical system, to identify characteristics of the battered women attending the group, and to examine whether the group shared the same characteristics as battered women who were evaluated in other contexts within the medical system. METHODS Fifty-nine clients attending a domestic violence group at an urban public hospital completed questionnaires on referral sources, demographic characteristics, needs, and satisfaction. Included for comparison were clinical data on referral sources and demographic characteristics for 224 battered women evaluated by clinical social workers at the hospital and affiliated clinics. RESULTS Referral patterns differed for the two groups: the majority of the social work cases were referred from the emergency room, and the majority of the referrals to the domestic violence group were from outside agencies, informal sources, and the hospital's inpatient units. A greater proportion of women attending the group were white, divorced or separated, and no longer living with their partners. Among the social work cases, the women were more likely to be ethnic minorities, single, and still living with their partners. CONCLUSIONS The domestic violence group intervention attracted a different subgroup of battered women than did the social work intervention, which was likely due to differences in readiness to initiate change and to cultural barriers to group participation.
Impact of Simulated Microgravity on Cell Cycle Control and Cytokine Release by U937 Cells

Previous experiments from flight- and ground-based model systems indicate unexpected alterations of human leukocytes, leading to growth retardation and depression of mitogenic activation. The response of myelomonocytic U937 cells to simulated microgravity was therefore investigated. To this purpose, U937 cells were cultured in the NASA-developed bioreactor Rotating Wall Vessel (RWV) as a device to simulate microgravity on earth. No apoptosis was detected, in part because of the up-regulation of hsp70. In agreement with results obtained in space-flown U937 cells, the cells grew more slowly in the RWV than under normal conditions and this correlated with the down-modulation of cdc25B. Marked alterations of the cytokine secretion profile and, in particular, of inflammatory chemokines, as well as a decrease of the proteasome activity, were also observed in response to microgravity.
Symmetry exploitation in digital interpolators/decimators

This correspondence extends the symmetric FIR filter algorithms of the previous work of the author to the computation of interpolators and decimators. We will show that the number of arithmetic operations in digital interpolation and decimation can be significantly reduced. As a result, we introduce a new class of efficient interpolator and decimator structures.