Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptors in α1-adrenergic receptor-induced cardiomyocyte hypertrophy

AbstractAim:Intracellular Ca2+ plays pivotal roles in diverse cellular functions, including gene transcription that underlies cardiac remodeling during stress responses. However, the role of inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptors (IP3Rs) in the mediation of cardiac intracellular Ca2+ and hypertrophic growth remains elusive. Prior work with neonatal rat ventricular myocytes suggests that activation of IP3Rs may be linked to α1 adrenergic receptor (α1 AR) increased stereotyped Ca2+ spark occurrence and global Ca2+ oscillations. Thus, we hypothesized that Ca2+ release through IP3Rs was necessary for α1 AR-stimulated cardiac hypertrophy.Methods:We used myoinositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate hexakis (butyryloxymethyl) ester (IP3BM), a membrane-permeant ester of IP3, to activate IP3Rs directly, and Fluo 4/AM to measure intracellular Ca2+ signaling.Results:IP3BM (10 μmol-L−1) mimicked the effects of phenylephrine, a selective agonist of α1AR, in increments in local Ca2+ spark release (especially in the perinuclear area) and global Ca2+ transient frequencies. More importantly, IP3R inhibitors, 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borate and Xestospongin C, abolished the IP3BM-induced Ca2+ responses, and significantly suppressed α1AR-induced cardiomyocyte hypertrophy assayed by cell size, [3H] leucine incorporation and atrial natriuretic factor gene expression, during sustained (48 h) phenylephrine stimulation.Conclusion:These results, therefore, provide cellular mechanisms that link IP3R signaling to α1 AR-stimulated gene expression and cardiomyocyte hypertrophy.
Learning from Local Authority Budgeting

The Public Administration Committee study of the budgetary processes of seventeen local authorities, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, has produced a welter of information about local government as it operates in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Analysing it is a formidable challenge because the studies are revealing a very wide variety of structures and processes confirming the diversity of local political systems and of the social, political, economic and organisational structures identified by Stanyer, (1976). The information gathered can be used to
Gingival crevicular fluid levels of RANKL and OPG in periodontal diseases: implications of their relative ratio.

AIM Receptor activator of NF-kappaB ligand (RANKL) and osteoprotegerin (OPG) are a system of molecules that regulate bone resorption. This study aims to compare the levels of RANKL, OPG and their relative ratio in gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) of healthy and periodontal disease subjects. MATERIAL AND METHODS GCF was obtained from healthy (n=21), gingivitis (n=22), chronic periodontitis (n=28), generalized aggressive periodontitis (n=25) and chronic periodontitis subjects under immunosuppressant therapy (n=11). RANKL and OPG concentrations in GCF were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. RESULTS RANKL levels were low in health and gingivitis groups, but increased in all three forms of periodontitis. OPG levels were higher in health than all three periodontitis, or gingivitis groups. There were no differences in RANKL and OPG levels between chronic and generalized aggressive periodontitis groups, whereas these were lower in the immunosuppressed chronic periodontitis group. The RANKL/OPG ratio was significantly elevated in all three periodontitis forms, compared with health or gingivitis, and positively correlated to probing pocket depth and clinical attachment level. CONCLUSION GCF RANKL and OPG levels were oppositely regulated in periodontitis, but not gingivitis, resulting in an enhanced RANKL/OPG ratio. This ratio was similar in all three periodontitis groups and may therefore predict disease occurrence.
The Mechanism of State Charter School Policy Adoption: The Case of American States

This article concentrates on charter school policy that is regarded as the fastest growing innovative policy in America. Its adoption is more impressive than other innovative policies in the public educational area. By 2008, 40 states among 50 American states have passed charter school law since Minnesota became the first pathfinder to create charter school law about two decades ago. However, 10 states have not adopted charter school law. Based on this dichotomous policy phenomenon, the primary research question of the study focuses on clarifying what factors drive American states to adopt charter school policy. To obtain answers for this research question, the study dedicates to analyzing main hypotheses from the regional diffusion model and state characteristics, using event history analysis. The results demonstrate that the three predictor variables—regional diffusion, similar innovation, and gubernatorial political tendency—positively have significant effects in explaining the adoption of American state charter school policy.
Why Do US Firms Choose Global Equity Offerings

This study examines the economic motivation for global seasoned equity offerings made by US firms. We find that firms announcing global offerings have significantly less-negative market reactions than had they limited the issues to domestic only. The extent of the reduced price drop at issue announcement is found to be negatively associated with pre-announcement price run-up, firm size, and market-to-book equity, but positively associated with unsystematic risk. We also find that global issuing firms outperform their domestic counterparts for up to three years following the offerings.
Proteomics and polycystic ovary syndrome

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a complex endocrine disorder of heterogeneous etiology. Proteomics techniques have been used for elucidating the physiopathology of PCOS, yet the proteins identified so far were rarely the same across tissues and studies. The present review discusses the current challenges in the application of proteomics to the study of PCOS. A well-defined research design and an appropriate selection of study populations, samples and proteomic platforms are essential in clinical proteomics. Furthermore, the findings derived from proteomic approaches should be validated by complementary techniques, and the reproducibility of the results has ideally to be confirmed by different studies. Only when meeting these requirements, the proteins identified by proteomic techniques should be considered as candidates for future studies aiming to define specific molecular phenotypes of PCOS and their possible role in the metabolic and hormonal abnormalities characteristic of this syndrome.
Eating disorders in adolescents and their repercussions in oral health.

OBJECTIVE To examine the prevalence of oral alterations related to eating disorders and associated factors. METHOD A cross-sectional study including 650 adolescents aged from 12 to 16 was carried out through self-report questionnaires (EAT-26; BITE and self-rating hamilton depression questionnaire, SRHDQ) and dental examination. RESULTS Significant associations were observed in mucositis, cheilitis, hypertrophy of salivary glands, and dental erosions. The prevalence of adolescents at risk for eating disorders was of 33.1%, according to EAT-26 and 1.7% (high scores) and 36.5% (medium scores), in BITE, higher among 13-year-old females, with brothers, parents or responsible person who are illiterate, being the youngest child, living in a residence of at most two rooms and who showed depressive symptoms. All these factors showed significant relation to eating disorders. DISCUSSION Presence of oral alterations is associated to symptoms of eating disorders, helping precocious detection of sub clinical cases.
Dominância fiscal ou dominância monetária no Brasil? Uma análise de causalidade

The aim of this study is to verify whether there is fiscal or monetary dominance in the Brazilian economy in the period of the post-Real plan. We investigate the long run equilibrium relationship and bivariate and multivariate Granger causality among the variables nominal interest rate, debt to GDP ratio, primary surplus to GDP ratio, real exchange rate and risk premium. The results have shown Brazil as a country under monetary dominance regime, according to Sargent and Wallace (1981) definition. In addition, the model proposed by Blanchard (2004) does not find empirical support in the Brazilian economy.
Community Ventures and Access to Markets: The Role of Intermediaries in Marketing Rural Tourism Products

Many community-based tourism ventures face marketing problems similar to those of other rural producers. They depend on intermediaries, such as private companies, membership organisations, public sector institutions and non-governmental organisations, to facilitate market access. The article analyses the strengths and weaknesses of each type of intermediary, based on different levels of marketing support. Reflecting discussions about marketing assistance in other rural sectors, it argues that intermediary institutions have different areas of expertise and experience different constraints in terms of capacity-building, marketing know-how, financial resources and overall livelihood impacts. Instead of pursuing individual support strategies, it is therefore necessary to develop combined approaches of marketing assistance, depending on location, tourism resources and existing organisational structures.
International Real Estate Returns: A Multifactor, Multicountry Approach

We examine the risk and return characteristics of publicly traded real estate companies from 14 countries over the period 1990 to 2001. Our data are monthly country‐level commercial real estate indexes constructed by the European Public Real Estate Association (EPRA). We find substantial variation in mean real estate returns and standard deviations across countries. Using various global‐ and country‐level factor models, we find that there is evidence of a strong global market risk component, measured relative to the Morgan Stanley Capital International world index, in most countries. However, even after controlling for the effects of global market risk, an orthogonalized country‐specific market risk factor is highly significant, especially for real estate indexes in Asia–Pacific markets. We find that a country‐specific value risk factor has some explanatory power in addition to the country‐specific market factor, but U.S.‐based market, value and size risk factors do not provide any additional explanatory power. These findings imply that the international diversification opportunities with real estate companies are more complex than previously thought.
Using Tax Return Data to Simulate Corporate Marginal Tax Rates

We document that simulated corporate marginal tax rates based on financial statement data (Shevlin 1990 and Graham 1996a) are highly correlated with simulated rates based on corporate tax return data. We provide algorithms that can be used to estimate the book or tax simulated rates when they are not available. We find that the simulated book marginal tax rate does a better job of explaining financial statement debt ratios than does the analogous tax return variable and discuss how the book simulated rate is likely to be an appropriate measure in settings with global, long-term considerations.
Observation of the ion resonance instability.

Observation of the ion resonance instability in a pure electron plasma trap contaminated with a small population of ions is reported. The ion population is maintained by ionization of the background gas. The instability causes the plasma to move steadily off-center while undergoing [ital l]=1 diocotron oscillations. The observed scaling of the maximum growth point is presented, and the growth rate and its dependence on ion density are discussed. Several aspects of the observed behavior are not in agreement with previous theory but derive from the transitory nature of the ion population.
European stock market comovement dynamics during some major financial market turmoils in the period 1997 to 2010 – a comparative DCC-GARCH and wavelet correlation analysis

This article examines the comovement dynamics between the developed European stock markets of the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Austria. After applying a Dynamic Conditional Correlation-Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedastic (DCC-GARCH) and wavelet multiscale analysis on a daily return series for the period 1997 to 2010, we found that (1) comovements between stock market returns are time varying and scale dependent; (2) financial crisis in the observed period did not uniformly increase comovement between stock market returns across all scales; (3) the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 only slightly and temporarily increased the already high level of comovement between the observed stock markets.
Publicly Provided Education

Historically, most attention in public programs has been given to the resources devoted to the activity, and resources have been used to index both commitment and quality. Education differs from other areas of public expenditure because direct measures of outcomes are available, making it is possible to consider results and, by implication, to consider the efficiency of provision. Early interpretations of the evidence, emanating from popular interpretations of the Coleman Report that 'schools do not make a difference,' are incorrect, but the basic evidence behind the statement suggests serious performance problems of government supply, because purchased inputs to schools are not closely related to outcomes. This paper reviews that evidence along with providing an evaluation of the various controversial aspects including issues of causality, consumer behavior, and estimation approaches. Two detailed policy areas are discussed in terms of the evidence on performance: public versus private provision and the financing of schools.
THE HISTORY OF FINANCE: AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT

In this account of the evolution of finance theory, the "father of modern finance" uses the series of Nobel Prizes awarded finance scholars in the 1990s as the organizing principle for a discus-sion of the major developments of the past 50 years. Starting with Harry Markowitz's 1952 Journal of Finance paper on "Portfolio Selection," which provided the mean-variance frame-work that underlies modern portfolio theory (and for which Markowitz re-ceived the Nobel Prize in 1990), the paper moves on to consider the Capi-tal Asset Pricing Model, efficient mar-ket theory, and the M & M irrelevance propositions. In describing these ad-vances, Miller's major emphasis falls on the "tension" between the two main streams in finance scholarship: (1) the Business School (or "micro normative") approach, which focuses on investors 'attempts to maximize returns and cor-porate managers' efforts to maximize shareholder value, while taking the prices of securities in the market as given; and (2) the Economics Depart-ment (or "macro normative") approach, which assumes a "world of micro optimizers" and deduces from that assumption how the market prices actually evolve. 2000 Morgan Stanley.
Sustainability Report and Bank Valuation: Evidence from European Stock Markets

Applying value relevance analysis to a sample of European banks, we test the following: (i) the direct effects of the sustainability report on stock price; (ii) whether the report modifies the value relevance of financial accounting variables (indirect effects); and (iii) whether the value relevance of sustainability reports varies across countries. Results show that investors appreciate the additional and complementary disclosure provided by the sustainability report and that this disclosure produces a positive effect on stock prices. Estimates of the indirect effects demonstrate that it has a negative influence on book value per share, whereas the effect on earnings per share is not significant. Cross‐country analysis shows that the value relevance of the sustainability report varies across European countries, consistent with the hypothesis that the value relevance of the sustainability report is likely to be influenced by different institutional contexts.
HR managers as toxin handlers: The buffering effect of formalizing toxin handling responsibilities

Toxin handlers are organizational members who help colleagues manage negative emotions in the workplace. Although toxin handling activities help distressed employees remain productive, they put the toxin handler at risk of emotional exhaustion. In this research, more than 400 HR managers described their experience managing emotionally charged employee problems. We found that formalizing toxin handling responsibilities provided a buffering effect: HR managers whose organizations had made handling emotionally charged employee problems a formal part of HR responsibilities experienced lower levels of emotional exhaustion and perceived HR as more effective, even when they engaged in high levels of toxin handling. Formalizing toxin handling responsibilities may protect HR managers from harm and ensure that they maintain the toxin handling function in their organizations. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The Internal Economics of the Firm: Evidence from Personnel Data

We analyze twenty years of personnel data from one firm. The hierarchical structure is quite simple and stable. Career movements suggest that the employee's rate of learning and the firm's learning about ability are important. There are promotion "fast tracks. " Exit rates vary little with tenure or salary. The firm has personnel policies like those described in the internal labor markets literature, although several theoretical preconditions for ILMs, such as ports of entry and exit, are lacking. Job levels are important to compensation, but there is also substantial individual variation in pay within levels. Our companion paper (in this issue) explores the wage policy of this firm.
A Survey on Spectral–Spatial Classification Techniques Based on Attribute Profiles

Just over a decade has passed since the concept of morphological profile was defined for the analysis of remote sensing images. Since then, the morphological profile has largely proved to be a powerful tool able to model spatial information (e.g., contextual relations) of the image. However, due to the shortcomings of using the morphological profiles, many variants, extensions, and refinements of its definition have appeared stating that the morphological profile is still under continuous development. In this case, recently introduced theoretically sound attribute profiles (APs) can be considered as a generalization of the morphological profile, which is a powerful tool to model spatial information existing in the scene. Although the concept of the AP has been introduced in remote sensing only recently, an extensive literature on its use in different applications and on different types of data has appeared. To that end, the great amount of contributions in the literature that address the application of the AP to many tasks (e.g., classification, object detection, segmentation, change detection, etc.) and to different types of images (e.g., panchromatic, multispectral, and hyperspectral) proves how the AP is an effective and modern tool. The main objective of this survey paper is to recall the concept of the APs along with all its modifications and generalizations with special emphasis on remote sensing image classification and summarize the important aspects of its efficient utilization while also listing potential future works.
TIS gene expression in cultured rat astrocytes: Induction by mitogens and stellation agents

The expression of a number of TIS genes (Lim et al.:Oncogene 1:263–270, 1987) was examined in secondary cultures of rat neocortical astrocytes treated with mitogens and stellation agents, to study the early nuclear events which accompany the induction of glial proliferation and/or differentiation. Tetradecanoyl phorbol acetate (TPA), epidermal growth factor, and firoblast growth factor, three mitogens for astrocytes, stimulated marked, rapid, and transient increases in TIS gene mRNAS. TIS10, which is not expressed in rat PC12 pheochromocytoma cells, could be induced by these mitogens in rat astrocytes. Dibutyryl cyclic adenosine monophosphate and forskolin, which induce rapid stellation in astrocytes, and ganglioside GM1, a potent mitogen as well as an antagonist of the induction and maintenance of stellation, all induced TIS gene expression. Thus, a broad range of agents which elicit both proliferative and differentiation responses in astrocytes are capable of inducing a family of genes that may play a role in the early events of signal transduction.
Coordinating Expertise in Software Development Teams

Like all teams, knowledge teams must acquire and manage critical resources in order to accomplish their work. The most critical resource for knowledge teams is expertise, or specialized skills and knowledge, but the mere presence of expertise on a team is insufficient to produce high-quality work. Expertise must be managed and coordinated in order to leverage its potential. That is, teams must be able to manage their skill and knowledge interdependencies effectively through expertise coordination, which entails knowing where expertise is located, knowing where expertise is needed, and bringing needed expertise to bear. This study investigates the importance of expertise coordination through a cross-sectional investigation of 69 software development teams. The analysis reveals that expertise coordination shows a strong relationship with team performance that remains significant over and above team input characteristics, presence of expertise, and administrative coordination.
Light-Touch Integration of Chinese Cross-Border M&A: The Inﬂuences of Culture and Absorptive Capacity

As a major entry mode of global strategy of Chinese MNCs, Chinese cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) is still a less understood phenomenon, in particular the post acquisition phase. This study contributes to this rising, important and interesting phenomenon utilizing an explorative research method. By integrating synergy potential, culture influences and the learning perspective, we suggest a multilevel perspective in understanding Chinese cross-border M&A. A novel post acquisition integration approach, namely light-touch integration, is investigated, and supported by newly assembled empirical evidence in the context of Chinese M&A in Germany. Light-touch integration essentially synthesizes the preservation and symbiosis integration approaches due to the contextual characteristics of Chinese cross-border M&A, such as cultural influences and the learning perspective. Understanding the cultural and learning influences can facilitate and smooth the activities involved in the post acquisition phase. The light-touch integration approach offers ample opportunities for joint collaborations between and mutual benefits for acquiring firms, acquired targets and third party organizations. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Global and Regional Yield Curve Dynamics and Interactions: The Case of Some Asian Countries

Since the Asian financial crisis in 1997–98, Asian countries have made continuous efforts to promote monetary and financial cooperation for developing regionally well-established bond markets. This paper empirically evaluates the developments of bond markets in the East-Asia region based on the recently developed empirical methodology of dynamic cross-country bond yield interactions. To this end, we use a two-step state space model to examine the existence of the global and regional factor and analyze the effect of both factors on four Asian countries’ yield curves. We find that both global and regional factors play an important role in explaining these countries’ yield factors, although the regional factor appears to have a smaller role than the global factor and that this result seems to be robust to different subsamples. We interpret this result as evidence on the existence of the regional commonality and on endeavors toward Asian bond markets.