Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Glial fibrillary acidic protein immunohistochemistry of spinal cord astrocytes after induction of ischemia or anoxia in culture

The effects of ischemia (removal of oxygen and glucose for 4 h) and anoxia (removal of oxygen alone) on astrocytes were studied in dissociated cultures of E14 spinal cord containing both neurons and astrocytes. In addition, a group of cultures was treated with a low Na+, low Ca2+, and high K+ medium during the 4‐h ischemic period (ischemia‐protected group), a process that protects neurons from ischemic damage under identical conditions. Astrocytes were examined immunohistochemically using glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) antiserum 24 h after insult. Densitometry and statistical analysis (1‐way analysis of variance [ANOVA], a priori; 2‐tailed Tukey‐t, a posteriori) of the digitized images of the somata and processes of astrocytes in the anti‐GFAP reacted cultures showed significant differences between the groups; a significant increase (P<0.01) in the GFAP‐positive reaction in the somata of ischemic astrocytes and a significant decrease (P<0.01) in the GFAP‐positive reaction in the processes of ischemic, ischemia‐protected, and anoxic astrocytes. There were no significant differences in the GFAP immunoreactivity of somata between control, ischemia‐protected, and anoxic astrocytes or of processes from ischemic, ischemia‐protected, and anoxic astrocytes. These data show that following ischemia cultured astrocytes increase somatic GFAP immunoreactivity compared to all other groups tested whereas the staining intensity for GFAP was decreased in the processes of all three experimental groups compared to controls. Ischemia protection resulted in the absence of the enhancement of somatic GFAP immunoreactivity. The relationship of the astrocytic response and the type of cellular stress is discussed.
Closed-Form Solutions for Option Hedging with Market Impact

We present a highly-intuitive closed-form delta-hedging result for a large investor whose trades generate adverse market impact. Unlike the complete-market or proportional-transaction-cost cases, the agent no longer finds it tenable to be perfectly hedged or even within a fixed distance of being hedged. Instead, he may find himself arbitrarily mishedged and optimally trades towards the classical Black-Scholes delta, with trading intensity proportional to the degree of mishedge and inversely proportional to illiquidity. When viewed in light of a recent result of Garleanu and Pedersen (2009), this suggests that delta-hedging can be thought of as a Merton problem where the Merton-optimal portfolio is the Black-Scholes delta hedge. Both the discrete-time and continuous-time problems are solved. We discuss a number of applications of our result, including the implications of our model on intraday trading patterns and stock pinning at options’ expiry. Finally, numerical simulations on TAQ data based on intraday hedging of call options suggest that this strategy is able to significantly reduce market impact cost with respect to Black-Scholes delta hedging.
Dynamic Movement Primitives ( DMPs ) encode a desired movement trajectory in terms of the attractor

Dynamic Movement Primitives have successfully been used to realize imitation learning, trial-and-error learning, reinforcement learning, movement recognition and segmentation and control. Because of this they have become a popular representation for motor primitives. In this work, we showcase how DMPs can be reformulated as a probabilistic linear dynamical system with control inputs. Through this probabilistic representation of DMPs, algorithms such as Kalman filtering and smoothing are directly applicable to perform inference on proprioceptive sensor measurements during execution. We show that inference in this probabilistic model automatically leads to a feedback term to online modulate the execution of a DMP. Furthermore, we show how inference allows us to measure the likelihood that we are successfully executing a given motion primitive. In this context, we show initial results of using the probabilistic model to detect execution failures on a simulated movement primitive dataset.
Cost of Labor in Manufacturing Sectors of Turkey Compared with Other Transition Countries: Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia

This paper compares the competitiveness of Turkey in manufacturing in terms of unit labor cost with the transition countries including Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia. Unlike the pure wage rate comparison, Turkey performs better than other countries in the sample with respect to unit labor cost. Turkey has lower unit labor cost almost in all the sectors. In addition, unit labor costs and their growth rates are examined in detail specifically for the manufacturing sectors with rising and declining export shares in recent years.
Customer Value and Customer Roles on Social Media: A Travel Agency Case Study

Customer value is created during the processes of pre-purchase, purchase, and after-purchase, during which customers play different roles. This study analyzes customer value by identifying how customer roles influence and shape customer behavior. Traditionally, customer value is discussed as the relationship between a service provider and customers. The emergence of social media facilitates interaction not only between the service provider and customers, but also among online users. This study focuses on the kinds of value customers can earn from their interaction behaviors on social media, using a Taiwanese travel agency as a case study. The study identifies four types of customer roles and six types of customer value and their corresponding relationships as well. The research findings have several theoretical and practical implications.
Multidimensional skyline analysis based on agree concept lattices

The SKYLINE concept has been introduced in order to exhibit the best objects according to all the criterion combinations and makes it possible to analyze the relationships between SKYLINE objects. Like the data cube, the SKYCUBE groups all the multidimensional SKYLINES and it is so voluminous that reduction approaches are a necessity. In this paper, we define an approach which partially materializes the SKYCUBE. The underlying idea is to discard from the representation the Skycuboids which can be computed again easily. To meet this reduction objective, we characterize a formal framework: the Agree Concept Lattice. It provides a formal framework which makes it possible to improve computation time, reduce representation and easily navigate through the Hasse diagram in order to focus on the most relevant skycuboids. This structure is generic, applies to various database analysis problems and combines both formal concept analysis and database theory. It makes use of the concepts of agree set and database partition. They are associated to define the Agree Concept of a database relation. The set of all the Agree Concepts is organized within the Agree Concept Lattice. From this structure, we derive the SKYLINE concept lattice which is one of its constrained instances for efficient multidimensional SKYLINE analysis. The strong points of our approach are: (i) it is attribute oriented; (ii) it provides a boundary for the number of lattice nodes; (iii) it facilitates the navigation within the Skycuboids.
Corporate Governance Mechanisms and Firm Performance:Evidence from Finland

This paper examines the association between corporate governance attributes and firm performance of Finnish firms during 1990 – 2000. The empirical results suggest that corporate governance matters for firm performance. First, univariate test results indicate that firms characterized by a high (efficient) level of corporate governance have delivered greater stock returns, are higher valued based on the measure of Tobin’s Q, and exhibit higher ratios of cash flow to assets, on average, in comparison to their counterparts characterized by a low (inefficient) level of corporate governance. Second, controlling for a number of well-known determinants of stock returns, we find evidence that firms categorized by inefficient corporate governance have delivered inferior returns to shareholders during the investigation period. Finally, after controlling for several common determinants of firm value, we find that firms characterized by efficient corporate governance have been valued higher during the investigation period, measured by Tobin’s Q.
Longitudinal investigation of the role of temperament and stressful life events in childhood anxiety

Abstract The current study investigated the longitudinal relationships among behavioral inhibition (BI), life events, and anxiety in a sample of 102 BI children and 100 behaviorally uninhibited (BUI) children aged 3 to 4 years. Children's parents completed questionnaires on BI, stressful life events, and anxiety symptoms, and were administered a diagnostic interview three times in a 5-year period. In line with our hypotheses, negative life events, particularly negative behavior-dependent life events (i.e., life events that are related to the children's own behaviors), and the impact of negative life events were predictive of increases in subsequent anxiety symptoms, the likelihood of having an anxiety disorder, and increased number of anxiety diagnoses over the 5-year follow-up period. Experiencing more positive, behavior-independent life events decreased the risk of being diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Furthermore, differences were found in life events between BI and BUI children. That is, BI children experienced fewer positive and specifically positive behavior-dependent life events, and the impact of these positive life events was also lower in BI children than in BUI children. However, BI did not interact with life events in the prediction of anxiety problems as hypothesized. Therefore, this study seems to indicate that BI and life events act as additive risk factors in the development of anxiety problems.
Who serves the underserved? Predictors of physician care to medically indigent patients

Using a national sample of 466 doctors, this work is the first to determine how sociodemographic characteristics, family lives, educational experiences and work environments combine over the life course to shape physician attitudes and behaviors toward serving the medically indigent. Survey data reveal that most physicians have positive experiences with indigent patients, and feel responsible for providing care for the needy. On average, one-quarter of doctors’ patients are medically indigent, and physicians provide six hours of charity care per week. Multivariate regression and path analyses indicate that disparate social forces predict humanitarian attitudes and behaviors of physicians. Physician attitudes toward the indigent are shaped largely by socializing forces, including medical education and relationships with mentors. In contrast, care of indigent patients is driven by physician attitudes and by characteristics of medical practice such as specialty and practice setting. Implications for scholarship and for medical education, practice and health policy are discussed.
Taxing for Takeoff: Estimating Airport Tax Incidence Through Natural Experiments

We view the different start dates of U.S. airport taxes as replicated natural experiments. In each, a portion of plane tickets are subject to a new tax of $3. We show that airlines, in response, raise nonstop fares by $6.5 and overshift the tax onto their nonstop passengers; however, they keep connecting fares little changed and appear burdened by the tax. The results suggest that airport taxes and other similar taxes encourage airlines to provide more nonstop services, and we argue that these taxes can be redesigned to promote both efficiency and equity.
rfb Mutations in Vibrio cholerae Do Not Affect Surface Production of Toxin-Coregulated Pili but Still Inhibit Intestinal Colonization

ABSTRACT The toxin-coregulated pilus (TCP) of Vibrio cholerae is essential for colonization. It was recently reported thatrfb mutations in V. cholerae 569B cause the translocation arrest of the structural subunit of TCP, raising the possibility that the colonization defects of lipopolysaccharide mutants are due to effects on TCP biogenesis. However, an rfbB gene disruption in either V. cholerae O395 or 569B has no apparent effect on surface TCP production as assessed by immunoelectron microscopy and CTX phage transduction, and anrfbD::Tn5lac mutant of O395 also shows no defect in TCP expression. We conclude that the colonization defect associated with rfb mutations is unrelated to defects in TCP assembly.
The House of Quality

ITT are getting started with it. Ford and General Motors use it–at Ford alone there are more than 50 applications. The “house of quality,” the basic design tool of the management approach known as quality function deployment (QFD), originated in 1972 at Mitsubishi’s Kobe shipyard site. Toyota and its suppliers then developed it in numerous ways. The house of quality has been used successfully by Japanese manufacturers of consumer electronics, home appliances, clothing, integrated circuits, synthetic rubber, construction equipment, and agricultural engines. Japanese designers use it for services like swimming schools and retail outlets and even for planning apartment layouts. A set of planning and communication routines, quality function deployment focuses and coordinates skills within an organization, first to design, then to manufacture and market goods that customers want to purchase and will continue to purchase. The foundation of the house of quality is the belief that products should be designed to reflect customers’ desires and tastes–so marketing people, design engineers, and manufacturing staff must work closely together from the time a product is first conceived. The house of quality is a kind of conceptual map that provides the means for interfunctional planning and communications. People with different
Choice of Board Governance and Auditing in U.S. Family Firms

We show using a sample of U.S. listed firms that larger and older family firms and those that plan to access the capital market differentiate themselves from other family firms by choosing independent and effective corporate boards and by taking demonstrably independent board actions that are costly for exploitative insiders to mimic, such as choosing specialist auditors and exposing the firm to intensive scrutiny by the auditors. We show that the current evidence on higher earnings quality in family firms is driven by firms that choose strong boards. Although family firms generally pay lower audit fees than nonfamily firms because of lower risk, this result does not hold in family firms with strong governance. Such good-governance firms are more likely to choose specialist auditors than weak-governance firms and pay audit fees that are as high as those for nonfamily firms. We interpret these choices as suggesting that a subset of family firms signal their transparency to the market and separate themselves from other family firms. In a confirmatory test, we find that this subset of family firms enjoys better credit ratings.
FAKTOR - FAKTOR YANG MEMPENGARUHI KEBIJAKAN HUTANG PERUSAHAAN MANUFAKTUR

The purposes of this study are to obtain empirical evidence and test the factors that affect the debt policy among listed companies in Indonesian Stock Exchanges. The factors are dividend policy, investment, firm growth, asset structure, size, profitability, and managerial ownerships. This study was carried out on the companies that are listed as manufacturing company in period of 2006-2009 at Indonesian Stock Exchange. Multiple regressions analysis is used to test the hypothesis and purposive sampling method used to take the samples. The conclusions of this research are dividend policy, asset structure, and profitability affect the company’s debt policy. While investments, firm growth, size, managerial ownerships have no effect to the firm’s debt policy.
A Method for the Correction of Garbled Words Based on the Levenshtein Metric

In this paper we propose a new method for correcting garbled words based on Levenshtein distance and weighted Levenshtein distance. We can correct not only substitution errors, but also insertion errors and deletion errors by this method. According to the results of simulation on nearly 1000 high occurrence English words, higher error correcting rates can be achieved by this method than any other method tried to date. Hardware realization of the method is possible, though it is rather complicated.
Mutations in Myosin VIIA (MYO7A) and Usherin (USH2A) in Spanish patients with usher syndrome types I and II, respectively

Usher syndrome is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by congenital hearing impairment and retinitis pigmentosa. Three clinical types are known (USH1, USH2 and USH3), and there is an extensive genetic heterogeneity, with at least ten genes implicated. The most frequently mutated genes are MYO7A, which causes USH1B, and usherin, which causes USH2A. We carried out a mutation analysis of these two genes in the Spanish population. Analysis of the MYO7A gene in patients from 30 USH1 families and sporadic cases identified 32% of disease alleles, with mutation Q821X being the most frequent. Most of the remaining variants are private mutations. With regard to USH2, mutation 2299delG was detected in 25% of the Spanish patients. Altogether the mutations detected in USH2A families account for 23% of the disease alleles. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
CORTICOSTEROID TREATMENT DOES NOT REACTIVATE CANINE HERPESVIRUS IN RED FOXES

To study canine herpesvirus (CHV) reactivation from red foxes (Vulpes vulpes), 29 foxes with varying CHV antibody and CHV carrier status were treated with methylprednisolone acetate, a glucocorticosteroid drug with prolonged immunosuppressive effect in dogs. In the first experiment, 17 foxes with unknown CHV carrier status were treated once with methylprednisolone; in the second experiment, five foxes were treated twice, 4 mo after being intravenously CHV infected; and in the third experiment, six foxes were treated five times, 11 mo after peroral CHV infection. Infectious CHV was not isolated after treatment from either naturally or experimentally CHV-infected foxes or from untreated, CHV-seronegative in-contact foxes. Canine herpesvirus DNA was not detectable in mucosal secretions or white blood cells of any of the foxes, whereas all trigeminal ganglia of experimentally CHV-infected foxes were polymerase chain reaction-positive. In CHV-seropositive foxes, anti-CHV antibody titers did not change with time after treatment, and CHV-seronegative in-contact controls did not seroconvert. Hematologic parameters remained mostly unchanged. We conclude that CHV is not as easily reactivated in foxes following corticosteroid treatment as in dogs, although there was no obvious sign of immunosuppression. Canine herpesvirus was not spread from virus carriers to naive in-contact foxes, which may be among possible explanations for the reported low CHV prevalence in wild foxes.
Diversity of age‐specific reproductive rates may result from ageing and optimal resource allocation

This paper reports the results of a dynamic programming model which optimizes resource allocation to growth, reproduction and repair of somatic damage, based on the disposable soma theory of ageing. Here it is shown that different age‐dependent patterns of reproductive rates are products of optimal lifetime strategies of resource partitioning. The array of different reproductive patterns generated by the model includes those in which reproduction begins at the maximum rate at maturity and then declines to the end of life, or increases up to a certain age and then drops. The observed patterns reflect optimal resource allocation shaped by the level of extrinsic mortality. A continuous decline in the reproductive rate from the start of reproduction is associated with high extrinsic mortality, and an early increase in the reproductive rate occurs under low extrinsic mortality. A long‐lived organism shows a low reproductive rate early in life, and short‐lived organisms start reproduction at the maximum rate.
Consumer Satisfaction and Redress with a Government Third-Party Complaints Agency

As governments around the world adopt a marketing orientation, the importance of consumer satisfaction to the effectiveness of the organization is being recognized. While some investigation of satisfaction with a government agencies' service has occurred, there is little examination of satisfaction with a government agency that acts as a third-party on the behalf of consumers to gain marketplace redress. Given the number of third-party complaints is increasing as a result of internet access to complaint channels, this research is a timely investigation. This study reports the findings of a survey of 454 complainants to an Australian Government agency: the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). The findings show that satisfaction with the service was subjectively experienced, based around individual expectations of the redress and satisfaction levels were higher when the redress sought was financial compared with non-financial forms of redress such as apology.
A Study on Relationship of Foreign Net-Fund-Flow and the Index of Stock Market in Thailand

The activities of investors create movements in funds; in other words, they cause funds to flow. The fund flow indicates the demand from investors on the stock market of a country. It also shows the demand for the stocks in the market. When funds flow into the market, there is more demand on purchasing. On the other hand, when funds flow out, it occurs together with stock selling or lower demand on stock purchasing. Since the stock market in Thailand is liberalized, opening up opportunities towards foreigners to invest in the market, the foreign investors in Thailand become the second biggest player in Thailand’s stock market. As long as the market is liberalized to foreign investors, they will continue to speculate on the prices of stocks because the dividend yield of the stocks in the market will have decreased as time goes by. So it can be seen that the fund from foreign investors have more activities. This study tries to investigate the relationship between the foreign net fund flows and the SET Index. The SET Index will be used as a proxy of market return because the SET Index, or the Stock Exchange of Thailand, is calculated from the prices of all stocks listed for trading in the market. The result of this study shows that the foreign fund flows and the SET Index have a positive relationship despite an unexpected error in statistical equations shown by the value of R-Square. Furthermore, from the study, it can be clearly seen that the SET Index movement continues in the same direction in the long run even though it can move in the different direction during the short run period.
Influence of the composition of in‐vitro azo‐reducing systems on the degradation kinetics of the model compound amaranth

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of the composition of in‐vitro azoreducing systems on the degradation kinetics of the model compound amaranth. The degradation kinetics of amaranth were determined under anaerobic conditions both in rat caecal content (ex‐vivo) and in a variety of in‐vitro degradation media derived from rat caecal content. It was observed that the reducing activity was highly dependent on the preparation method and composition of the degradation medium. In pure rat caecal content, the degradation of amaranth was apparent first order (k = 0.044+0.002 min−1), while dilution of the rat caecal content resulted in an apparentzero‐orderdegradation. Both apparentzero‐ and first‐order degradations were also observed in media made up of diluted rat caecal content to which cofactors such as NADP, D‐glucose‐6‐phosphate, glucose‐6‐phosphate dehydrogenase and Bz were added. This study demonstrates that in‐vitro azo‐reducing kinetics are dependent on the composition and mode of preparation of the in‐vitro media used. This has to be taken into account when evaluating the degradability of azo‐aromatic drug delivery systems in‐vitro.