Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Variation in sexual orientations among men who have sex with men, and their current sexual practices.

PURPOSE To explore group variations in sexual risk-taking among different sexual orientations of men who have sex with men (MSM). METHOD A convenience sample of men was recruited in gay-identified venues. An analysis was conducted to determine the independence of sexual orientation (gay, gay-previously heterosexual, currently bisexual), age and risk-taking. RESULTS Bisexual men were younger, lived outside metropolitan areas and socialized more in bathhouses. In general, bisexuals reported the safest sexual practices and previously heterosexual men the most unprotected. CONCLUSIONS Among MSM, variation in sexual orientations was associated with differences in unprotected sex for older age groups. For the youngest age group, a similar level of risk-taking of the different orientation groups suggests uniform sociocultural influences.
Meat quality traits of grass and grain finished Brahman crosses for domestic and export markets.

Brahman females were mated to sires of eight breeds (Brahman, Santa Gertrudis, Belmont Red, Angus, Hereford, Shorthorn, Charolais and Limousin) to produce straightbred Brahman and Fi crossbred calves in 1996. Calves were finished either on pasture in northern Australia or feedlot in northern or southern Australia for the domestic, Korean or Japanese markets. Differences between sire breeds for intramuscular fat percentage were not expressed in domestic market weight animals, where intramuscular fat percentage (IMF %) values were very low. At later market weights, differences between sire breeds in IMF % were consistent with increasing age. Based on peak force measurements, straightbred Brahman progeny consistently had the toughest meat at all market endpoints.
Use of Assisted Reproductive Technologies in the Propagation of Rhesus Macaque Offspring1

Abstract The assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) as tailored to the production of rhesus monkeys at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) are described. Efficient fertilization of mature oocytes recovered by aspiration from females subjected to follicular stimulation was achieved with fresh or frozen sperm by intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Embryo development to the early cleavage stage occurred at high frequency. Cryopreserved embryos showed high postthaw survival and were also transferred in efforts to establish pregnancies. Three methods of transfer were evaluated, two involving embryo placement into the oviduct, laparoscopy and minilaparotomy, and a nonsurgical, transcervical approach that resulted in uterine deposition. Early cleaving embryos (Days 1–4) were transferred into the oviducts of synchronized recipients with optimal results and pregnancy rates of up to 36%. Pregnancy rates were similar when two fresh or frozen embryos were transferred (28– 30%), although more than two embryos had to be thawed to compensate for embryo loss during freeze-thawing. Normal gestational lengths, birth weights, and growth curves were seen with ART-produced infants compared with infants produced by natural mating in the timed mated breeding (TMB) colony at the ONPRC. In 72 singleton pregnancies established following the transfer of ART-produced embryos, the live-birth rate, at 87.5%, was statistically identical to that for the TMB colony. Further development of the ARTs should result in increasing use of these techniques to augment conventional approaches to propagating monkeys, especially those of defined genotypes.
The Rise of Online News Aggregators: Consumption and Competition

The rise of news aggregator sites is a notable phenomenon in the contemporary media landscape. Outperforming traditional news outlets, online news aggregators, such as Yahoo News, Google News, and the Huffington Post, have become major sources of news for American audiences. Facing economic hardships, some news organizations cast blame on news aggregators for stealing their content and audiences. However, the relationship between news aggregators and traditional media outlets on the demand side has not received sufficient scholarly attention. Through a national survey of 1,143 U.S. Internet users, this study integrates the uses and gratifications paradigm and an economic approach to predict aggregator consumption and examine market competition. In terms of consumption, among demographic factors, age and ethnicity are the two major predictors of aggregator use. Among psychological factors, opinion motivations is the only non-predictor of aggregator use, suggesting that users do not seek opinion-driven content when they visit aggregator sites. In terms of competition, this study uncovers non-competitive relationships between three major news aggregators and 13 major TV, print, and social media news outlets. Such findings are at odds with industry sentiment and the proposed model serves as a basis for further theorizing news aggregator consumption.
SOCIAL NETWORKING AS AN ALTERNATIVE ENVIRONMENT FOR EDUCATION

The main purpose of this research is to analyze the impact of social networks on educational process in Romanian higher education. Employing a theoretical framework regarding the educational value of the social networking web sites, we propose a model of implementing Facebook usage in higher education leaning processes. In order to support our argument, data were gathered through a survey on students and academics at the Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies. Our results reveal that social networking sites have become very popular among students and might be considered as valuable tools for education. The study also opens a wide perspective on students’ availability to use social networking sites, but also other web based technologies. While the literature concerning the educational process in Romania is scarce, we contribute by providing empirical evidence about the degree of availability of students and academics in using social networking sites for education.
A Study of the Relationship Between Institutional Investors and Corporate Value: Empirical Evidence of Iran

3 Abstract: Institutional investors have substantially grown globally, matured markets in last two decades parallel with the increase in their impact. They seek to own large proportions of equities; as a result they have become influential on the performance of companies in which they invest. The aim of the present study is to create the instances which are related to the controlling role of the institutional investors in listed companies on Tehran Stock Exchange during 2001-2008. The results show that the growth and institutional investors' level variables are the most important factors which have the positive effect on the corporate value. On other hand, the institutional investors' concentration, debt and size variables are the most important factors, which have the negative effect on the corporate value. There is a meaningful negative relationship between the institutional investors' concentration and corporate value, i.e. the institutional investors' concentration decrease the company's value.
The consumers' profile of SST in the portuguese banking services

Commercial banking has been introducing new self-service technologies (SST), in the contact with customers, which is changing the nature of the service process and customer's behaviour. Socio-demographic factors are associated with adoption and use of self-service technologies. This paper analyses the socio-demographic profile of the Portuguese's users of self-service technologies. The research includes three self-service banking technologies: ATM, telephone banking and internet banking. A brief literature review is presented, as well as, a research that collected data, by means of, a questionnaire realized to 300 individuals that represent the Portuguese adult population. The paper discusses, and shows that SST users are the younger and the middle age people, with education at the 12th year level (or more) and employees who most utilize the SST, to carry out raise of money; deposits, consultation and others operations. Keywords Self-service technologies, Consumers, ATM, Internet banking, Telephone banking, Portugal.
Managing Corporate Investment and R&D Financing: Are They Really Different?

The aim of this paper is to identify the different role of financial funds in traditional and R&D investments in Italian firms. Given its intrinsic characteristics, R&D is usually characterized by high information opacity and thus implies, coherently with the asymmetric information theory, greater difficulties in finding external financial funding. The higher risk related to R&D projects could entail some form of financial constraints. However, signaling mechanisms such as self-financing could correct such a market imperfection. The aim of this research is to investigate the determinants of R&D investment internal financial funding (self-financing). Traditional and R&D investments are considered to indicate a possible interaction between different self-financing patterns. Using different econometric models (Logit, OLS and SUR), our results show how information and agency costs, reflected in firm characteristics, affect financing decisions in both traditional and R&D investments. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that, in information opaque firms, internal equity plays an important role in R&D financing decisions. To the contrary, traditional investments are less related to self-financing. Public subsidies play a crucial role as a stimulus of R&D and investment self-financing. The overall evidence indicates that banking variables are also more relevant in traditional investments.
A Tool to Characterize the Components of Pharmacist Interventions in Clinical Pharmacy Services: The DEPICT Project

BACKGROUND The complexity of clinical pharmacy services usually leads to an inconsistent or even poor description of their interventions in scientific reports. To ensure comparability and reproducibility of the evidence, an in-depth description of pharmacist interventions is required. OBJECTIVE To validate a new tool called DEPICT (Descriptive Elements of Pharmacist Intervention Characterization Tool) to characterize clinical pharmacy services. METHODS We developed a 3-phase study. First, to create a theoretical framework, an overview of systematic reviews was performed in PubMed between 2000 and 2010. Then, an in-depth analysis of the included studies was carried out to identify a list of components in order to create the instrument. Finally, 2 independent raters separately applied the tool to a random sample of 28 randomized clinical trials extracted from the systematic reviews. Interrater agreement was evaluated using PABAK (prevalence-adjusted bias-adjusted κ) coefficient or intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). RESULTS We included 49 systematic reviews in our overview. Analysis of these studies resulted in 58 intervention components, with 57 dichotomous variables and 1 discrete variable. These items resulted in a preliminary version of the instrument. The reliability analysis showed that 8 binary items of this version had a PABAK less than or equal to 0.60. These items were then excluded or modified, resulting in a final version of the tool, with 54 items organized into 12 domains. DEPICT showed an average PABAK of 0.85 (95% CI 0.81 to 0.88) and an ICC of 1.0. Twenty items presented a PABAK value between 0.61 and 0.80 (substantial agreement) and 33 had a value between 0.81 and 1.0 (almost perfect agreement). CONCLUSIONS DEPICT is a reproducible instrument for describing the components of pharmacist interventions performed as part of clinical pharmacy services. It allows retrospective analysis of published studies and can be used as a reference guide to report pharmacist interventions in future studies.
Detectionand frequencyofChlamydia trachomatis DNA in synovial samples fromTunisian patientswith reactivearthritis and undi ¡ erentiated oligoarthritis

Detectionand frequencyofChlamydia trachomatis DNA in synovial samples fromTunisian patientswith reactivearthritis and undi¡erentiated oligoarthritis Mariam Siala, Radhouane Gdoura, Mohamed Younes, Hela Fourati, Ilhem Cheour, Nihel Meddeb, Naceur Bargaoui, Sofien Baklouti, Slaheddine Sellami, Markus Rihl & Adnene Hammami Laboratoire de Recherche ‘Micro-organismes et Pathologie Humaine’, EPS Habib Bourguiba, Sfax, Tunisia; Service de Rhumatologie, EPS Fattouma Bourguiba, Monastir, Tunisia; Service de Rhumatologie Hôpital Hedi Chaker, Sfax, Tunisia; Service de Rhumatologie, EPS La Rabta, Tunis, Tunisia; and Hannover Medical School (MHH), Clinic for Immunology and Rheumatology, Hannover, Germany
Adduction of DNA with MTBE and TBA in mice studied by accelerator mass spectrometry

Methyl tert‐butyl ether (MTBE) is a currently worldwide used octane enhancer substituting for lead alkyls and gasoline oxygenate. Our previous study using doubly 14C‐labeled MTBE [(CH3)314CO14CH3] has shown that MTBE binds DNA to form DNA adducts at low dose levels in mice. To elucidate the mechanism of the binding reaction, in this study, the DNA adducts with singly 14C‐labeled MTBE, which was synthesized from 14C‐methanol and tert‐butyl alcohol (TBA), or 14C‐labeled TBA in mice have been measured by ultra sensitive accelerator mass spectrometry. The results show that the methyl group of MTBE and tert‐butyl alcohol definitely form adducts with DNA in mouse liver, lung, and kidney. The methyl group of MTBE is the predominant binding part in liver, while the methyl group and the tert‐butyl group give comparable contributions to the adduct formation in lung and kidney. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Environ Toxicol 22: 630–635, 2007.
ADVOCACY ADVERTISING FOR BIOTECHNOLOGY: The Effect of Public Accountability on Corporate Trust and Attitude Toward the Ad

Organizations whose position in the marketplace depends on increasingly sophisticated technologies are using marketplace advocacy ads to promote acceptance of their products and the processes used to create them. It was hypothesized that for this type of advocacy advertising, (1) public accountability, a construct developed from previous research on advertising credibility and social-psychological theory, would predict corporate trustworthiness, and (2) corporate trustworthiness and attitude toward the advertiser would predict attitude toward the ad. Two components of public accountability were significant predictors of corporate trustworthiness, and trustworthiness and attitude toward the advertiser predicted attitude toward the ad, attitude toward plant biotechnology, and purchase intention.
Knowledge , Education , and Attitudes of International Students to IELTS : A Case of Australia

The main objective of this study is to determine the knowledge, education and attitudes of Chinese, Indian and Arab speaking students in Australia towards the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test. A questionnaire was administered to 200 students at six university language centers to investigate their overall response towards the four components of the IELTS test i.e. listening, reading, writing, and speaking. It was hypothesized that having positive or negative attitudes toward a certain language can exert considerable effect on the learners’ performance on a language test. The effect of variables such as testing environment, test rubric, and broader demographic factors on attitudes of the three national groups were investigated. Significant differences were found on students’ misconceptions of language learning, motivation and the degree to which it may have hindered their progress in attaining language skills.
Targeted inhibition of T‐cell factor activity promotes syndecan‐2 expression and sensitization to doxorubicin in osteosarcoma cells and bone tumors in mice

Alterations of Wnt signaling appear to be involved in the pathogenesis of osteosarcoma, presenting mutations of adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) and epigenetic downregulation of Wnt inhibitory factor 1. However, the precise role of Wnt effectors in the bone cancer progression remains unclear. We previously showed that Wnt/β‐catenin/T‐cell factor (TCF) activation are responsible for the repression of syndecan‐2, a key modulator of apoptosis and chemosensitivity in osteosarcoma cells, suggesting a role of Wnt signaling in chemoresistance. In this study, we investigated the functional relationship between syndecan‐2, Wnt/β‐catenin/TCF signaling and chemosensitivity in these cells. To this goal, we selected resistant osteosarcoma cells from sensitive human cell lines using repeated exposures to doxorubicin. In doxorubicin‐responsive but not in doxorubicin‐resistant‐derived cells syndecan‐2 expression was upregulated by doxorubicin treatment. Moreover, syndecan‐2 overexpression restored the sensitivity to doxorubicin in resistant‐derived cells. We found that syndecan‐2 induction by doxorubicin is forkhead box protein O3A (Foxo3a)‐dependent. Foxo3a overexpression resulted in increased syndecan‐2 expression in sensitive and resistant‐derived cells. Doxorubicin modulated Foxo3a binding on syndecan‐2 gene promoter and induced Foxo‐dependent inhibition of Wnt/TCF activity. Conversely, β‐catenin/TCF activation impaired syndecan‐2 induction by doxorubicin, indicating that Wnt signaling is competing with the action of the cytotoxic drug. However, β‐catenin was also found to be required for Foxo3a activity. Consistently, Dickkopf 1 (DKK1) and secreted frizzled‐related protein 1 (sFRP‐1) altered doxorubicin action in sensitive cells, whereas inhibition of TCF activity strongly decreased cell viability and increased sensitivity to doxorubicin in sensitive and resistant cells. TCF inhibition also increased the effect of doxorubicin treatment in an orthotopic bone tumor model in mice. Altogether, these data provide evidence that the repression of syndecan‐2 by Wnt/β‐catenin/TCF signaling contributes to the resistance of osteosarcoma cells to doxorubicin and suggest that TCF inhibition may represent a novel therapeutic strategy in osteosarcoma. © 2012 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
High risk of Helicobacter pylori infection in young Japanese dentists

Background and Aim: The route of person‐to‐person transmission of Helicobacter pylori may be either fecal–oral or oral–oral, because the bacterium is found in both dental plaque and feces. We assessed the prevalence of H. pylori seropositivity, which reflects present or past infection, in Japanese dentists exposed occupationally to dental plaque.
Consumer adoption of social networking sites: implications for theory and practice

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study factors affecting the acceptance of social networking sites (SNS), analyze users' practices and behavior in these environments and assess the degree of acceptance of SNS in The Netherlands. Design/methodology/approach – An extended technology acceptance model (TAM) was used to analyze the factors influencing the level of acceptance and use of SNS applying a structural equation modeling technique. Data were collected by means of an online national survey among Dutch SNS users. Findings – Results support all hypotheses with positive relationships and influence between analyzed constructs; the only exception was the hypothesis on the relation between perceived risk and perceived usefulness. Research limitations/implications – The survey was conducted in The Netherlands. This research can be considered as the basis for a more extensive research, covering other geographical areas, that will produce results allowing more specific and accurate predictions regarding the acceptance of SNS as marketing management tools. Practical implications – The findings reveal a number of issues that are important for companies eager to explore the potential of the SNS as a strategic tool and as a means of improvement of their managerial processes in the area of marketing strategy. Social implications – SNS are considered of great importance, both for individuals and businesses, since they support and expand existing social or business networks and allow the creation of new ones. The study underlines the importance of these networks as a communications and customer engagement channels. Originality/value – The traditional TAM has been widely studied to analyze the adoption of new technologies. However, the adoption of SNS has been so far very little studied. The study provides new insights in this adoption process. Alongside this, the study added two personal variables of SNS users (i.e. trust and perceived risk), improving the traditional TAM approach.
What Drives Racial and Ethnic Differences in High Cost Mortgages? The Role of High Risk Lenders

This paper examines racial and ethnic differences in high cost mortgage lending in seven diverse metropolitan areas from 2004-2007. Even after controlling for credit score and other key risk factors, African-American and Hispanic home buyers are 105 and 78 percent more likely to have high cost mortgages for home purchases. The increased incidence of high cost mortgages is attributable to both sorting across lenders (60-65 percent) and differential treatment of equally qualified borrowers by lenders (35-40 percent). The vast majority of the racial and ethnic differences across lender can be explained by a single measure of the lender’s foreclosure risk and most of the within-lender differences are concentrated at high-risk lenders. Thus, differential exposure to high-risk lenders combined with the differential treatment by these lenders explains almost all of the racial and ethnic differences in high cost mortgage borrowing.
Generative Low-Shot Network Expansion

Conventional deep learning classifiers are static in the sense that they are trained on a predefined set of classes and learning to classify a novel class typically requires re-training. In this work, we address the problem of Low-Shot network-expansion learning. We introduce a learning framework which enables expanding a pre-trained (base) deep network to classify novel classes when the number of examples for the novel classes is particularly small. We present a simple yet powerful hard distillation method where the base network is augmented with additional weights to classify the novel classes, while keeping the weights of the base network unchanged. We show that since only a small number of weights needs to be trained, the hard distillation excels in low-shot training scenarios. Furthermore, hard distillation avoids detriment to classification performance on the base classes. Finally, we show that low-shot network expansion can be done with a very small memory footprint by using a compact generative model of the base classes training data with only a negligible degradation relative to learning with the full training set.
[Iridoid glycosides from Pedicula dicora Franch].

OBJECTIVE To study the components in the root of Pedicula dicora. METHODS Column chromatography with silica gel and polyamide was employed for the isolation and purification of ingredients. The structures were elucidated by spectral method. RESULT Three iridoid glycosides were obtained and elucidated as mussaenoside, shanzhiside methyl ester and lamalbid. CONCLUSION All the three compounds were separated from P. dicora for the first time.