Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regulation of the arginine dihydrolase pathway in Clostridium sporogenes

Arginine deiminase activity was induced during the vegetative growth of Clostridium sporogenes. The enzyme was sensitive to catabolite repression. The other enzymes of the arginine dihydrolase pathway, namely, ornithine carbamoyl-transferase and carbamate kinase, did not show such variation.
Computer-based learning versus practical course in pre-clinical education: Acceptance and knowledge retention

Background: Computer-based learning is a tool that, when designed appropriately, can be used to effectively meet worthy educational goals. Aims: This study aimed to compare acceptance and effectiveness of a tutored computer-based practical course (CPC) with a traditional biochemical laboratory experiment in pre-clinical medical education. Method: Under quasi-randomised conditions two cohorts of second-year medical students performed either a CPC or a laboratory experiment. Students’ perceptions were obtained by assessment questionnaires, knowledge retention was investigated by post test. Results: The students evaluated the CPC highly significantly better than the laboratory experiment. Students performing the CPC demonstrated a statistically significant greater knowledge retention compared to students who performed the laboratory experiment. Conclusions: These findings show that learning objectives concerning basic biochemical knowledge can be acquired in a CPC and that medical students accept such a CPC as a substitute for a real laboratory experiment.
Seasonality in the Pakistani Equity Market: The Ramadhan Effect

This paper attempts to explore a seasonal pattern, the Ramadhan effect, in the Pakistani equity market. Ramadhan, the holy month of fasting, is expected to affect the behaviour of stock market in Pakistan where the environment in Ramadhan is different from other months as people devote more time to perform religious rituals and the general economic activity slows down. The effects of Ramadhan on mean return and stock returns volatility are examined by including a dummy variable in regressions and GARCH models respectively. The analysis indicates a significant decline in stock returns volatility in this month although the mean return indicates no significant change.
Structural Changes and Dairy Chain Efficiency in Italy

The dairy chain in Italy experienced substantial structural changes during the past years. Since the introduction of milk quotas in 1984, structural changes caused by consistent reduction of dairy farms, growing brand concentration at wholesale level, and diffusion of private labels at retail level may have altered the competitive market conditions, with increasing price asymmetry and inefficiencies in price transmission. We tested this hypothesis using the McCorriston and Sheldon’s successive oligopoly model, and we gave evidences of altered price transmission and consumer’s surplus distribution along the vertical chain in the examined period.
Logic filter cache for wide-VDD-range processors

Wide-VDD-range processors offer high energy efficiency for varying embedded workloads. But reducing the VDD of the cache as aggressively as the VDD of the CPU logic is not straightforward, since standard 6T SRAMs cease to operate at lower VDDs. We implement a data and instruction filter cache, using logic cells located in the CPU VDD domain, to permit the level-1 (L1) cache to be reliably powered at a higher SRAM VDD. On top of eliminating many energy-wasting L1 cache accesses, the filter cache reduces the total number of executed cycles. Furthermore, the filter cache can be reconfigured as CPU VDD is reduced, to filter out an increasing proportion of cache accesses. We evaluate our approach using a 65-nm 1.2-V low-leakage CMOS process, with a minimal CPU and SRAM VDD of 0.4 and 0.95 V, respectively. Assuming 16kB+16kB L1 caches and 256B+256B filter caches, introducing the filter cache reduces the total cache access energy by 71% at 1.2 V and 87% at 0.4 V at an area overhead which is 13% of the L1 cache area.
The Random Walk Hypothesis in the Spanish Stock Market: 1980–1992

In this paper we test the random walk hypothesis in the Spanish stock market using disaggregated daily data base spanning the period January 1980 to December 1992. We find that daily returns are strongly correlated and nonlinear dependent. Furthermore, using the variance-ratio test, that is robust to heteroscedasticity, the results suggest that the rejection of the random walk hypothesis cannot be attributed completely to the effects of time varying volatilities. In this sense, the price changes can be potentially predictable over, at least, short time spans. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997.
A cross-country analysis of the Okun's Law coefficient convergence in Europe

The paper examines whether or not evidence is consistent with convergence of the Okun's Law coefficient (OLC) among several alternative groupings of European economies. A two-step empirical strategy is employed. The first step obtains rolling regression estimates of the OLC for individual European countries. The second step examines how the cross-country variance of the OLC evolves over the decade until 2002 in the selected country groupings. Evidence is found consistent with convergence of the OLC among northern European countries, and among countries with centralized wage bargaining, but an absence of convergence in other country groups.
Defining Islamic accounting: current issues, past roots

The emergence of Islamic banks and other financial institutions since the 1970s has stimulated a modern literature that has identified itself as addressing “Islamic accounting”. Much of this literature is prescriptive, though studies of actual practice, and of attitudes to proposed alternatives, are beginning to emerge. Historical research into Islamic accounting is still in a process of development, with a range of studies based on both primary archives and manuals of accounting providing growing insight into accounting in state and private contexts in the Middle East. Other parts of the Muslim world are also the focus of historical accounting research. There is still much to discover, however, before historians can determine the influence of Middle Eastern accounting ideas and practices in other parts of the world. Moreover, the term “Islamic accounting” may simply be a convenient label to group together quite disparate accounting practices and ideas across time and space.
Demand and capacity planning in the emergency department: how to do it

Background Unless emergency departments have adequate capacity to meet demand, they will fail to meet clinical and performance standards and will be operating in the ‘coping zone’. This carries risks both for staff and patients. Methods As part of a quality improvement programme, the authors undertook an in-depth analysis of demand and capacity for an emergency department in the UK. The paper describes this rigorous approach to capacity planning, which draws on techniques from other industries. Discussion and conclusions Proper capacity planning is vital, but is often poorly done. Planning using aggregated data will lead to inadequate capacity. Understanding demand, and particularly the variation in that demand, is critical to success. Analysis of emergency department demand and capacity is the first step towards effective workforce planning and process redesign.
Photorefractive ker atectomy in patients with suspected keratoconus : Five-year follow-up

METHODS: Eyes of patients classified as keratoconus suspects or keratoconus by the Corneal Navigator software of the OPD-Scan II device were included. They were treated with myopic PRK using an EC-5000 excimer laser between 2004 and 2007. The main outcome measures were refractive stability, mean corneal keratometry, mean central pachymetry, mean thinnest point value, and the occurrence of postoperative complications such as corneal ectasia.
Irrevocable Commitments, Going Private and Private Equity

This paper adds to growing interest in public to private buy-outs and mechanisms to ensure bid success. Using a unique, hand-collected dataset of 155 public to private buy-outs we provide one of the first examinations of the determinants of irrevocable commitments. Irrevocable commitments involve undertakings given by existing shareholders to agree to sell their shares to the bidder before the bid to take the company private is announced. We find that, for management buy-outs, the level of irrevocable commitments is increased by the bid premium, the reputation of the private equity backer and board shareholdings. The level of irrevocable commitments is reduced by rumours of a takeover bid and bid value. We therefore find evidence that management and private equity firms' activity prior to the bid's announcement can have an important impact on the process of going private.
Hematological malignancies and pregnancy: Treat or no treat during first trimester

Treatment of hematological malignancies (HM) during pregnancy remain unsolved, although the use of chemotherapy during second and third trimester has been accepted because of the low rate of toxicities, the use of cytotoxic drugs during first trimester is generally forbidden. Most of the concerns are related to congenital abnormalities and development, but long‐term follow‐up of these children are not available. From 1975 to 2008, we diagnosed and treated 15,750 cases of HM, and 143 female patients were pregnant during this time that were treated with combined chemotherapy. In our study, we present the long‐term follow‐up (the median follow‐up was 22.4 years with a range of 3.8–32.0 years) of 54 newborns, whose mothers received chemotherapy during the first trimester of pregnancy with an intent‐to‐cure HM. Physical and neurological development were carefully assessed, and cardiac and chromosomal studies were performed until the age of 20 years to evaluate late toxicities. The obstetrical development of pregnancy was normal, chemotherapy was used at doses and schedules used in normal patients. Low‐weight birth was the most frequent finding. No congenital abnormalities were detected. Physical, psychological and neurological developments were normal. Education and academic degree were according to the economical and social factors. Cardiac function and chromosomal examination were normal. No neoplasm or acute leukemia has been observed in these children. Forty‐three mothers are alive and disease‐free and can be considered cured. The use of cytotoxic drugs during the first trimester to treat HM seems to be beneficial to both the mother and fetus, and chemotherapy during the first trimester can be considered if the cure of the patient is the goal.
A U.S. Financial Conditions Index: Putting Credit Where Credit is Due

This paper uses vector autoregressions and impulse-response functions to construct a U.S. financial conditions index (FCI). Credit availability - proxied by survey results on lending standards - is an important driver of the business cycle, accounting for over 20 percent of the typical contribution of financial factors to growth. A net tightening in lending standards of 20 percentage points reduces economic activity by ¾ percent after one year and 1¼ percent after two years. Much of the impact of monetary policy on the economy also works through its effects on credit supply, which is evidence supporting the existence of a credit channel of monetary policy. Shocks to corporate bond yields, equity prices, and real exchange rates also contribute to fluctuations in the FCI. This FCI is an accurate predictor of real GDP growth, anticipating turning points in activity with a lead time of six to nine months.
Non-linear dynamics in financial asset returns: the predictive power of the CBOE volatility index

In this paper we attempt to predict the direction of change of the S&P500 index over the period 8 April 1998 to 5 February 2002 by means of a recurrent neural network (RNN). We demonstrate that the incorporation in the trading rule of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) volatility index changes strongly enhances its profitability during ‘bear’ market periods. This improvement is measured in comparison with a RNN including changes of estimated conditional volatility measures, a linear autoregressive model as well as to a buy-and-hold strategy. We suggest a number of theories that are consistent with our findings.
Patient self-administered joint tenderness counts in rheumatoid arthritis are reliable and responsive to changes in disease activity.

OBJECTIVE To examine whether self-assessment of tender and swollen joints by patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) can be used to evaluate changes in disease activity instead of joint counts by physicians. METHODS Eighty-two patients with RA taking part in controlled studies were recruited for investigation. The patient's self-assessment of joint tenderness and swelling was completed both before and 30 minutes after examination by a physician. Examinations of tender and swollen joints by a rheumatologist were performed at baseline and 3 months later. The correlations and verification of agreement of these clinical assessments were analyzed. RESULTS Within-patient and patient-physician correlations for joint tenderness counts were high (r = 0.96 and 0.78, respectively). Patient-physician correlation for joint swelling counts was still significant, although much lower (r = 0.34). Patients' and physicians' estimations of the change in disease activity over 3 months did not differ (p > 0.76 for all comparisons). CONCLUSION Joint tenderness counts were consistent when comparing intra-patient and patient-physician assessments, while joint swelling counts were poorly correlated. Patient and physician assessments of change over 3 months were parallel and similar for joint tenderness count. Self-administered tender joint counts might be a useful tool to evaluate the response to therapy in RA.
Muscle Pump Does Not Enhance Blood Flow In Exercising Skeletal Muscle.

The muscle pump theory holds that contraction aids muscle perfusion by emptying the venous circulation, which lowers venous pressure during relaxation and increases the pressure gradient across the muscle. We reasoned that the influence of a reduction in venous pressure could be determined after maximal pharmacological vasodilation, in which the changes in vascular tone would be minimized. Mongrel dogs (n = 7), instrumented for measurement of hindlimb blood flow, ran on a treadmill during continuous intra-arterial infusion of saline or adenosine (15-35 mg/min). Adenosine infusion was initiated at rest to achieve the highest blood flow possible. Peak hindlimb blood flow during exercise increased from baseline by 438 +/- 34 ml/min under saline conditions but decreased by 27 +/- 18 ml/min during adenosine infusion. The absence of an increase in blood flow in the vasodilated limb indicates that any change in venous pressure elicited by the muscle pump was not adequate to elevate hindlimb blood flow. The implication of this finding is that the hyperemic response to exercise is primarily attributable to vasodilation in the skeletal muscle vasculature.
Dismissed intergenerational support? New social risks and the economic welfare of young adults

This paper concerns the declining role of the welfare state in supporting young adults. The literature on new social risks concentrates on the incapacity of institutions to respond to a new social situation, and has so far largely neglected the capacity of alternative systems or institutions to fill the vacuum created. The focus in the paper is on the situation of young adults in a Nordic welfare state, in which social security benefits have developed unfavourable. Perusal of Finnish data on welfare-state programmes and financial transfers across generations, and of the literature on new social risks, reveal that young adults living on the basic level of social security, such as basic unemployment benefit, a student grant or child home-care allowance, are in a particularly vulnerable economic position. On a more detailed level, the article shows that the proportion of people receiving financial support from their parents has been increasing at the same time as the welfare state's ability to provide support has been diminishing. The overall conclusion is that there is an invisible compensatory mechanism offsetting the economic vulnerability of many young adults.
Aid and Sanctions

Foreign aid donors and recipient governments often have conflicting objectives. Foreign donors may attempt to influence the policies of recipient governments by offering aid or threatening to suspend aid to sovereign states. This paper considers the credibility of such inducements and the conditioning of aid flows on policy behavior by national governments in the presence of opposing objectives. Aid can be conditioned on past policy actions of the recipient and used to influence the distribution of government resources in a simple repeated agency model. In equilibrium, aid flows are backloaded and reward recipient governments for donor-preferred policy actions. The model is extended to a stochastic setting to allow for asymmetric information between donors and recipients regarding government resources and accumulation of private of foreign assets. This allows for unobserved capital flight implicitly financed by foreign aid inflows by constituents favored by the government. Conditional aid is still feasible and can be enforced by aid suspensions in the presence of potential capital flight.
The Significance of the Hard Framework on Agency Performance

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the implementation of nine management practices produce effects on government performance. Employee opinions were collected from eight state revenue agencies using a Web-based survey. A total of 4,186 completed surveys were collected, for a 50.5 percent response. The findings reveal that nearly 72 percent of the variation in employee-perceived improvements in results is explained by employee-perceived variation in management practices. The findings also indicate that state revenue employees perceive that the systemic and analytic practices (i.e., strategic planning, performance measurement. and process improvements) have larger effects on results than do the softer factors (i.e., performance feedback, customer service, empowerment, teamwork, training, employee rewards, and recognition programs). However, some of the softer factors are improved when mediated by the hard framework of the systemic and analytic practices. In particular, performance feedback is key to managing and improving performance. These findings have strong implications for public managers in organizing, managing, motivating, and sustaining high-performing agencies.
Improving the accuracy of outlook price forecasts

This study investigates the predictive ability of outlook hog price forecasts released by Iowa State University relative to alternative time-series and market forecasts. Under root mean squared error (RMSE), the futures market forecast is most accurate at the first and second horizon but less accurate than Iowa outlook and the other forecast methods at the third horizon. In terms of the individual time-series models, some vector autoregressions (VARs) and Bayesian VARs flexible in specification and estimation and model averaging tend to perform better than Iowa outlook forecasts. Evidence from encompassing tests, more stringent tests of forecast performance, indicates that many price forecasts can add incremental information to the Iowa forecast. Simple combinations of these models and outlook forecasts are able to reduce forecast errors by economically significant levels. Overall, the results indicate that it is possible to provide more accurate forecasts than Iowa outlook at every horizon.
Effects of Combined Endothelin A Receptor and Renin-Angiotensin System Blockade on the Course of End-Organ Damage in 5/6 Nephrectomized Ren-2 Hypertensive Rats

Our previous studies in rats with ablation nephrectomy have shown similar cardiorenal protective effects of renin-angiotensin system (RAS)-dependent treatment (combination of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin II receptor blocker) and RAS-independent treatment (combination of α- and β-adrenoreceptor antagonist and diuretics). Moreover, selective blockade of endothelin (ET) receptor type A (ETA) improved survival rate and attenuated hypertension and organ damage in Ren-2 transgenic rats. Therefore, we were interested in whether ETA receptor blockade could have additive effects to the classical blockade of the RAS. Transgenic rats underwent 5/6 renal ablation at the age of 2 months and were treated for 20 weeks with RAS blockers alone (angiotensin II receptor blocker – losartan, and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor – trandolapril), ETA receptor blocker alone (atrasentan) or with the combination of RAS and ETA receptor blockade. RAS blockade normalized blood pressure and improved survival. It decreased cardiac hypertrophy and proteinuria as well as tissue angiotensin II and ET-1 levels. In contrast, ETA receptor blockade only partially improved survival rate, reduced blood pressure, attenuated the development of cardiac hypertrophy and transiently reduced proteinuria. However, no additive cardio- and renoprotective effects of ETA and RAS blockade were noted at the end of the study.
Genetic characterization of hantaviruses isolated from Guizhou, China: Evidence for spillover and reassortment in nature

To gain more insights into the epidemiology of hantaviruses in the Guizhou province, China, rodents were captured in Guizhou during the period from 2001 to 2003. In addition, serum sample was collected from one patient. Virus isolation was attempted from human serum and rodent samples. Four hantaviruses were isolated successfully in cell culture from one human, two A. agrarius, and one R. norvegicus. The nucleotide sequences for the entire S and M and partial L segment were determined from these four isolates as well as six viruses isolated in 1980s. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the S segment from all isolates belong to the Hantaan virus (HTNV) clade, regardless of the sources from which they were derived. According to the S sequences, these viruses could be divided into three distinct phylogroups, showing geographical clustering. Analysis of the entire M and the partial L segment sequences demonstrated that 8 out of the 10 isolates belong to the HTNV clade. However, two isolates (CGRn8316 and CGRn9415) isolated from R. norvegicus belong to the Seoul virus (SEOV) clade. In addition, these two isolates were distinct from other known members of SEOV clade. Together, the data suggest that at least three groups of HTNV are co‐circulating and one new variant of SEOV may be present in Guizhou. Our results also suggest that HTNV from A. agrarius spilled over to R. norvegicus and natural reassortment between HTNV and SEOV occurred during or after the spillover. J. Med. Virol. 80:1033–1041, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Estimating national economic parameters for Namibia using the shadow pricing approach

This paper estimates national economic parameters to be used for project appraisal in Namibia. The shadow prices of capital, labour, and foreign exchange are derived. The results suggest that the economic opportunity cost of capital is 7.2%. The economic costs of Namibian labour as a share of financial costs are 32% for urban semi-skilled and unskilled labour, and 54% for rural semi-skilled and unskilled labour. The economic costs of foreign labour as a share of financial costs are 59%. The shadow exchange rate factor is estimated to be 4% for the Namibian economy.