Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cell study of the three areas of the meniscus: Effect of growth factors in an experimental model in sheep

Meniscus had two areas with different vascular supply. Cells of the two areas and the synovium were monolayer cultivated. We analyzed the expression of genes of Col1, Col 2A, MMP‐2, MMP‐13, and aggrecan in a baseline state and after incubation with VEGF, TGF‐β, FGF, and IGF. We found that the growth factors used produced a major increase in the MMP‐13 in all three areas. In the vascular area, the stimulation of MMP‐3 was produced by FGF, while in the synovial and avascular areas, it was caused by TGF‐β. MMP‐2 was only stimulated in the synovial area by IGF. Col 2A was stimulated in the synovial area by VEGF, and in the avascular area by TGF‐β, FGF, and IGF, whereas Col 1 was stimulated in the avascular area by IGF, FGF, and VEGF. The vascular or avascular areas of the meniscus, behave differently in terms of repair, and their cells express different factors. The growth factors act in a different way in each meniscal area. © 2012 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 30:1647–1651, 2012
Application of Single-Stage Stereotactic Radiosurgery for Cerebral Arteriovenous Malformations >10 cm3

Background and Purpose— Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is a safe and effective treatment for small arteriovenous malformations (AVMs), the use of this modality for the treatment of large AVMs is still controversial, although it has been used in difficult cases. The aim of this study was to evaluate the treatment outcomes of patients who underwent single-stage SRS for large AVMs and to discuss the role of SRS in the treatment of these challenging lesions. Methods— Between 1998 and 2010, 65 patients with AVMs >10 cm3 underwent single-stage SRS using the Leksell Gamma Knife. Patients who had prospective volume-staged SRS were excluded from this series. Outcomes including the rates of obliteration, hemorrhage after treatment, and adverse events were retrospectively evaluated. Results— The mean nidus volume was 14.9 cm3 (±3.8 cm3), and a mean margin dose of 20 Gy (±1.5 Gy) was applied. The mean observation period was 60 months (range, 7–178 months). The nidus obliteration rates after SRS were 44%, 76%, and 81% at 3, 5, and 6 years, respectively. The annual hemorrhage rate after SRS was 1.94% and permanent adverse events were observed in 2 patients (3%). Conclusions— For large AVMs <20 cm3, single-stage radiosurgery by applying >16 Gy marginal dose presented favorable obliteration rates with relatively low rate of morbidity. Further accumulation of cases is awaited to fully evaluate the results of single-stage radiosurgery for large AVMs.
Diversification in Emerging Markets: The Case of Chilean Firms

This study is the first to analyze the effect on firm value of companies when they participate in the ownership of others companies in an emerging South American economy. For a sample of 83 non-financial Chilean companies traded in the 2005-2009 period, we find evidence of a discount for participate in ownership of other companies. However, this discount turns into a premium when participation in the ownership of another company results in control, especially in related sectors. In addition, we find a discount for unrelated corporate diversification similar to that found for other economies.
Adaptive security provisioning for vehicular safety applications

Vehicular ad hoc network provides safety applications for next generation intelligent transport systems. By periodically transmitting mobility information in basic safety messages (BSMs), vehicles get an overview of the neighbourhood. As applications involving vehicular networks impact human safety, reliability of BSMs is a key requirement, which however is a challenging task in heavy traffic scenarios where many BSMs are queued up simultaneously for signature verification. This results in long verification delays for many critical BSMs from nearby vehicles. To overcome this challenge, we propose two adaptive security mechanisms in this paper that can be used by the ITS applications to enhance their QoS and maintain good level of security. The first technique is a receiver-oriented technique that uses channel aware mechanism to prioritise the signature verification of BSMs from closer neighbours. The second technique is transmitter based that can adaptively select the best security level for BSMs according to cryptographic loss rate. Simulation results verify the performance enhancement achieved by the proposed framework in terms of several safety awareness metrics as compared with the existing schemes.
Adoption of Collaboration Technologies: Integrating Technology Acceptance and Collaboration Technology Research

This paper integrates the technology acceptance model (TAM) with constructs from collaboration technology research to present a model of collaboration technology use. Specifically, constructs in four sets of characteristicsâtechnology, individual and group, task, and situationalâdrawn from various media choice theories are presented as determinants of the TAM constructs of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and attitude toward using collaboration technology. The model was tested among 349 short message service (SMS) users in Finland. The model was largely supported, with the most significant findings being the effects of the four technology characteristicsâsocial presence, media richness, immediacy, and concurrencyâon the TAM constructs. In addition to making an important contribution by integrating two of the more dominant streams of information systems research, the model presented here is focused on a specific class of technologyâi.e., collaboration technologyâand, therefore, answers recent calls for developing models that deepen our understanding about the technology artifact.
Longitudinal in vivo monitoring of rodent glioma models through thinned skull using laser speckle contrast imaging

Abstract. Laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) is a contrast agent free imaging technique suited for longitudinal assessment of vascular remodeling that accompanies brain tumor growth. We report the use of LSCI to monitor vascular changes in a rodent glioma model. Ten rats are inoculated with 9L gliosarcoma cells, and the angiogenic response is monitored five times over two weeks through a thinned skull imaging window. We are able to visualize neovascularization and measure the number of vessels per unit area to assess quantitatively the microvessel density (MVD). Spatial spread of MVD reveals regions of high MVD that may correspond to tumor location. Whole-field average MVD values increase with time in the tumor group but are fairly stable in the control groups. Statistical analysis shows significant differences in MVD values between the tumor group and both saline-receiving and unperturbed control groups over the two-week period (p<0.05). In conclusion, LSCI is suitable for investigation of tumor angiogenesis in rodent models. In addition, the statistical difference (p<0.02) between MVD values of the tumor (24.40±1.41) and control groups (15.40±1.60) on the 14th day after inoculation suggests a potential use of LSCI in the clinic in distinguishing tumor environments from normal vasculature.
Use of the Er:YAG laser for improved plating in maxillofacial surgery: Comparison of bone healing in laser and drill osteotomies

Surgical reconstruction of bony defects in the maxillofacial region involves fixation of bony fragments with mini and micro plates. Bone stabilization during hole drilling is often challenging due to the need to apply pressure when using a conventional mechanical Hall drill. In addition, fragmentation of the fragile bones may occur and complicate the reconstruction. The pulsed Er:YAG laser offers an attractive alternative drilling modality because it does not require physical contact with the bone in order to drill holes, cuts bone with minimal thermal damage, and allows precise control of bone cutting. The objective of this study was to investigate the pulsed Er:YAG laser as an alternative to the mechanical bur by comparing bone healing using both modalities.
Volumetric Assessment of Glioma Removal by Intraoperative High-field Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

orrhage risk after stereotactic radiosurgery of cerebral arteriovenous malformations. Neurosurgery 38:652-661, 1996. 17. Pollock BE, Flickinger JC, Lunsford LD, Maitz A, Kondziolka D: Factors associated with successful arteriovenous malformation radiosurgery. Neurosurgery 42:1239–1247, 1998. 18. Spetzler RF, Martin NA: A proposed grading system for arteriovenous malformations. J Neurosurg 65:476–483, 1986. 19. Steiner L, Lindquist C, Adler JR, Torner JC, Alves W, Steiner M: Clinical outcome of radiosurgery for cerebral arteriovenous malformations. J Neurosurg 77:1–8, 1992. 20. Touboul E, Al Halabi A, Buffat L, Merienne L, Huart J, Schlienger M, Lefkopoulos D, Mammar H, Missir O, Meder JF, Laurent A, Housset M: Single-fraction stereotactic radiotherapy: A dose-response analysis of arteriovenous malformation obliteration. Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 41:855– 861, 1998. 21. Willinsky R, Lasjaunias P, ter Brugge K, Pruvost P: Brain arteriovenous malformations: Analysis of the angioarchitecture in relationship to hemorrhage (based on 152 patients explored and/or treated at the hopital de Bicetre between 1981 and 1986). J Neuroradiol 15:225–237, 1988.
The Effect of Competition on the Contracting Use of Customer Satisfaction: Evidence from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)

This paper empirically examines the effect of competition on the use of customer satisfaction in CEO compensation contracts. Specifically, using American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) scores of firms, we investigate whether customer satisfaction is more closely associated with CEO cash compensation when industry competition increases. Consistent with our prediction, we find that ACSI scores are more closely associated with CEO annual bonus when industry competition becomes greater. Furthermore, we find stronger results when we use industry-adjusted ACSI scores, suggesting that relative customer satisfaction measures are more likely to be used in CEO compensation contracts when industry competition becomes greater. Overall, our results are consistent with competition increasing the usefulness of customer satisfaction measures in compensation contracts.
Psychological needs and the facilitation of integrative processes.

The assumption that there are innate integrative or actualizing tendencies underlying personality and social development is reexamined. Rather than viewing such processes as either nonexistent or as automatic, I argue that they are dynamic and dependent upon social-contextual supports pertaining to basic human psychological needs. To develop this viewpoint, I conceptually link the notion of integrative tendencies to specific developmental processes, namely intrinsic motivation; internalization; and emotional integration. These processes are then shown to be facilitated by conditions that fulfill psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, and forestalled within contexts that frustrate these needs. Interactions between psychological needs and contextual supports account, in part, for the domain and situational specificity of motivation, experience, and relative integration. The meaning of psychological needs (vs. wants) is directly considered, as are the relations between concepts of integration and autonomy and those of independence, individualism, efficacy, and cognitive models of "multiple selves. "
Do Reverse Mortgage Borrowers Use Credit Ruthlessly?

Home Equity Conversion Mortgages ("HECMs") offer older US homeowners liquidity and implicit home price insurance. If borrowers' homes are worth less than their loan balance when they move or die, their liability is limited to collateral value. The Federal Housing Administration ("FHA") absorbs the lender's loss. FHA aims to break even on this insurance, but pricing does not reflect geographic or cyclical risk. HECMs were disproportionately originated near the recent home price cycle peak in markets with large subsequent busts. Many borrowers thus have credit lines with limits greater than their homes are worth, and FHA has lost money on HECM. Did borrowers adversely select into HECM intending to exploit mispriced insurance? This appears unlikely: borrowers whose loans terminated with credit limits greater than their homes are worth have been no likelier to exhaust credit than similar borrowers whose loans terminated with credit limits below collateral value.
Low frequency of apoptosis in Epstein‐Barr virus‐associated gastric carcinoma with lymphoid stroma

In order to understand the character of Epstein‐Barr virus (EBV)‐associated gastric carcinoma with lymphoid stroma (GCLS), we examined cell proliferation and death in comparison with gastric carcinoma without prominent lymphoid stroma (conventional gastric carcinoma). The EBV‐encoded small RNA I (EBER‐I) and apoptotic cells were examined by in situ hybridization (ISH) and by terminal deoxynucleotidyl tramferare (TdT)‐mediated dUTP‐biotin nick end‐labeling (TUNEL), respedvely, on formalin‐fmed paraffin‐embedded surgical speci‐mens from 22 GCLSs and 23 conventional gastric carcinomas. lmmunostaining was performed for the detection of Ki‐67 antigen (Ki‐67), P53 protein (P53) and bcl‐2 oncoprotein (BCL‐2). The percentages of apoptotic and Ki‐67‐positive cells were expressed as apoptotic indices (Al) and Ki‐67 labeling indices (KI), respectively. EBER‐ I was detected in I9 (86%) GCLSs in contrast to none in conventional carcinomas. Mean Al was 1.8 ± 0.6 in the EBER‐ I ‐positive GCLSs and 3.3 ± 1.7 in the conventional gastric carcinomas, the value being significantly lower in the former (p < 0.01). Mean KI was 40.0 ± 10.8 in the GCLSs and 48.5 ± 9.1 in the conventional gastric carcinomas, the value being significantly lower in the former (p < 0.05). P53 expression showed no significant difference between the 2 categories of carcinoma.
Constitutive Agonist-independent CCR5 Oligomerization and Antibody-mediated Clustering Occurring at Physiological Levels of Receptors* 210

Although homo-oligomerization has been reported for several G protein-coupled receptors, this phenomenon was not studied at low concentrations of receptors. Furthermore, it is not clear whether homo-oligomerization corresponds to an intrinsic property of nascent receptors or if it is a consequence of receptor activation. Here CCR5 receptor oligomerization was studied by bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) in cells expressing physiological levels of receptors. A strong energy transfer could be observed, in the absence of ligands, in whole cells and in both endoplasmic reticulum and plasma membrane subfractions, supporting the hypothesis of a constitutive oligomerization that occurs early after biosynthesis. No change in BRET was observed upon agonist binding, indicating that the extent of oligomerization is unrelated to the activation state of the receptor. In contrast, a robust increase of BRET, induced by a monoclonal antibody known to promote receptor clustering, suggests that microaggregation of preformed receptor homo-oligomers can occur. Taken together, our data indicate that constitutive receptor homo-oligomerization has a biologically relevant significance and might be involved in the process of receptor biosynthesis.
Inhibition of Auxin Effects by 2,4,6-Trichlorophenoxyacetic acid.

In a study of the relationship of structure of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) analogs to herbicidal activity, plants treated with 2,4,6-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,6-T) did not develop typical epinastic and swelling responses when exposed afterward to vapors of 2,4-D. Further work was carried on with other growth-regulators to determine whether this antagonism was general for auxins or specific for 2,4-D. The growth behavior of treated plants was investigated also to determine if the plant responses to natural hormones could be prevented by 2,4,6-T.
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) What We Mean When We Talk About Adherence in Respiratory Medicine

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Goodness of tone (GOT) for non-native Mandarin tone recognition

Lexical tone is one of the most challenging pronunciation problems in tonal language acquisition. Accurate lexical tone production is especially challenging for people whose native language is not a tonal one. In this paper, we propose Goodness of Tone (GOT), a conﬁdence measure inspired from goodness of pronunciation (GOP) for tone recognition. GOT is a vector representation of the conﬁdence of each lexical tone of the given speech segment. The proposed GOT conﬁdence measure is useful in tone recognition due to the following: 1) Unlike other tonal features such as pitch or fundamental frequency variation, GOT integrates both phonetic and tonal information. 2) GOT exploits competing tonal phones which differ only in tonal label but are the same in phonetic labels as a reference to conduct cohort normalization. 3) GOT is a vector that concatenates con-ﬁdence scores from all the possible lexical tones, making it easier to characterize error patterns of non-native tonal production.
The Effects of Voluntary Interim Auditor Reviews on Audit Fees and Earnings Quality

The interim reporting process provides decision-useful information to investors and market participants. However the legal circumstances of external interim auditor reviews differ worldwide. A mandatory review rule in the US as opposed to a contrary decision of the German legislator raises the question of the cost-benefit-relation of auditor reviews. Using a German sample of 1,023 firm-year observations from 2007 to 2010, I extract the costs and benefits of voluntary interim reviews. The unique German legal environment makes it possible to split the cost effect of a review in the price effect (included in audit-related fees) and a possible reduction of audit fees resulting from an improved year-around audit process. I observe a significant increase of audit and audit-related fees of around 14.5% (total fee effect) and declining audit fees for reviewed firms as compared to a matched sample. The effect on quarterly earnings quality shows no significant influence.
Corporate Strategy: A Resource-Based Approach

"Corporate Strategy" is a course whose design has been honed over six years of teaching at the Harvard Business School. It presents a single consistent framework for the analysis of corporate-level strategy. Based on the contemporary research in the resource-based view of the firm and organizational economics, it develops a rigorous approach to the many important issues surrounding the scope of the firm. Starting from the analysis of how valuable resources contribute to the competitive advantage of a single business, the book progresses through the analysis of scale, scope and vertical integration within an industry, to the treatment of diversification and the management of multibusiness firms. As such, it complements those required strategy courses that develop the notions of strategy as the internal consistency and external positioning of single business firms.
Efficient Simulation of Value at Risk with Heavy-Tailed Risk Factors

Simulation of small probabilities has important applications in many disciplines. The probabilities considered in value-at-risk (VaR) are moderately small. However, the variance reduction techniques developed in the literature for VaR computation are based on large-deviations methods, which are good for very small probabilities. Modeling heavy-tailed risk factors using multivariate t distributions, we develop a new method for VaR computation. We show that the proposed method minimizes the variance of the importance-sampling estimator exactly, whereas previous methods produce approximations to the exact solution. Thus, the proposed method consistently outperforms existing methods derived from large deviations theory under various settings. The results are confirmed by a simulation study.
Explaining International new venture internationalisation:an innovation adoption model

The increasing prevalence of International New Ventures (INVs) during the past twenty years has been highlighted by numerous studies (Knight and Cavusgil, 1996, Moen, 2002). International New Ventures are firms, typically small to medium enterprises, that internationalise within six years of inception (Oviatt and McDougall, 1997). To date there has been no general consensus within the literature on a theoretical framework of internationalisation to explain the internationalisation process of INVs (Madsen and Servais, 1997). However, some researchers have suggested that the innovation diffusion model may provide a suitable theoretical framework (Chetty & Hamilton, 1996, Fan & Phan, 2007). The proposed model was based on the existing and well-established innovation diffusion theories drawn from consumer behaviour and internationalisation literature to explain the internationalisation process of INVs (Lim, Sharkey, and Kim, 1991, Reid, 1981, Robertson, 1971, Rogers, 1962, Wickramasekera and Oczkowski, 2006). The results of this analysis indicated that the synthesied model of export adoption was effective in explaining the internationalisation process of INVs within the Queensland Food and Beverage Industry. Significantly the results of the analysis also indicated that features of the original I-models developed in the consumer behaviour literature, that had limited examination within the internationalisation literature were confirmed. This includes the ability of firms, or specifically decision-makers, to skip stages based om previous experience.
Pencil Grasp Pattern: How Critical is it to Functional Handwriting?

This thesis reports the results of a large study to evaluate the kinetics of pencil grasp patterns in terms of speed and legibility of handwriting of children in Grade 4. Current clinical practice as recent as 2008 suggests that teachers identify the dynamic tripod pencil grasp as an optimal pencil grasp for handwriting. Research findings had suggested that three other pencil grasps may be functional for handwriting, though there was still inconclusive evidence upon which to base clinical practice. The purpose of the present study was to: assess the impact of pencil grasp on the speed and legibility of handwriting; to determine the effect of grasp on speed and legibility following a 10-minute copy task intended to induce fatigue; and to describe the axial and grip forces of the four pencil grasps. 120 children were assessed, completing a standardized handwriting assessment before and after a 10-minute copy task. The participants utilized an instrumented pen and wrote on a digitizing tablet, which measured, respectively, the axial and grip forces associated with their grasp patterns. Pencil grasp was not found to impact the speed or legibility of the written product in either short or long duration copy tasks. Fatigue decreased the legibility of the product across all pencil grasps but increased the speed across all pencil grasps equally. Grip and axial forces were only different in grasps with an adducted thumb and mainly during the initial assessment. Collectively, these results suggest that four mature grasps are equally functional for handwriting in children of this age. These findings contradict common clinical impressions that the dynamic tripod pencil grasp is optimal. %%%%PhD