Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Expression and Regulation of Normal and Polymorphic Epithelial Sodium Channel by Human Lymphocytes*

Gene expression, protein expression, and function of amiloride-sensitive sodium channels were examined in human lymphocytes from normal individuals and individuals with Liddle's disease. Using reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reactions, expression of all three cloned epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) subunits was detected in lymphocytes. Polyclonal antibodies to bovine α-ENaC bound to the plasma membrane of normal and Liddle's lymphocytes. A quantitative analysis of fluorescence-tagged ENaC antibodies indicated a 2.5-fold greater surface binding of the antibodies to Liddle's lymphocytes compared with normal lymphocytes. The relative binding intensity increased significantly (25%;p < 0.001) for both normal and Liddle's cells after treatment with 40 μm 8-CPT-cAMP. Amiloride-sensitive whole cell currents were recorded under basal and cAMP-treated conditions for both cell types. Liddle's cells had a 4.5-fold larger inward sodium conductance compared with normal cells. A specific 25% increase in the inward sodium current was observed in normal cells in response to cAMP treatment. Outside-out patches from both cell types under both treatment conditions revealed no obvious differences in the single channel conductance. The P open was 4.2 ± 3.9% for patches from non-Liddle's cells, and 27.7 ± 5.4% in patches from Liddle's lymphocytes. Biochemical purification of a protein complex, using the same antibodies used for the immunohistochemistry, yielded a functional sodium channel complex that was inhibited by amiloride when reconstituted into lipid vesicles and incorporated into planar lipid bilayers. These four independent methodologies yielded findings consistent with the hypotheses that human lymphocytes express functional, regulatable ENaC and that the mutation responsible for Liddle's disease induces excessive channel expression.
Human Frequency Following Response: Neural Representation of Envelope and Temporal Fine Structure in Listeners with Normal Hearing and Sensorineural Hearing Loss

Objective: Listeners with sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) typically experience reduced speech perception, which is not completely restored with amplification. This likely occurs because cochlear damage, in addition to elevating audiometric thresholds, alters the neural representation of speech transmitted to higher centers along the auditory neuroaxis. While the deleterious effects of SNHL on speech perception in humans have been well-documented using behavioral paradigms, our understanding of the neural correlates underlying these perceptual deficits remains limited. Using the scalp-recorded frequency following response (FFR), the authors examine the effects of SNHL and aging on subcortical neural representation of acoustic features important for pitch and speech perception, namely the periodicity envelope (F0) and temporal fine structure (TFS; formant structure), as reflected in the phase-locked neural activity generating the FFR. Design: FFRs were obtained from 10 listeners with normal hearing (NH) and 9 listeners with mild-moderate SNHL in response to a steady-state English back vowel /u/ presented at multiple intensity levels. Use of multiple presentation levels facilitated comparisons at equal sound pressure level (SPL) and equal sensation level. In a second follow-up experiment to address the effect of age on envelope and TFS representation, FFRs were obtained from 25 NH and 19 listeners with mild to moderately severe SNHL to the same vowel stimulus presented at 80 dB SPL. Temporal waveforms, Fast Fourier Transform and spectrograms were used to evaluate the magnitude of the phase-locked activity at F0 (periodicity envelope) and F1 (TFS). Results: Neural representation of both envelope (F0) and TFS (F1) at equal SPLs was stronger in NH listeners compared with listeners with SNHL. Also, comparison of neural representation of F0 and F1 across stimulus levels expressed in SPL and sensation level (accounting for audibility) revealed that level-related changes in F0 and F1 magnitude were different for listeners with SNHL compared with listeners with NH. Furthermore, the degradation in subcortical neural representation was observed to persist in listeners with SNHL even when the effects of age were controlled for. Conclusions: Overall, our results suggest a relatively greater degradation in the neural representation of TFS compared with periodicity envelope in individuals with SNHL. This degraded neural representation of TFS in SNHL, as reflected in the brainstem FFR, may reflect a disruption in the temporal pattern of phase-locked neural activity arising from altered tonotopic maps and/or wider filters causing poor frequency selectivity in these listeners. Finally, while preliminary results indicate that the deleterious effects of SNHL may be greater than age-related degradation in subcortical neural representation, the lack of a balanced age-matched control group in this study does not permit us to completely rule out the effects of age on subcortical neural representation.
Strategies to Decrease the Incidence of Genetic Disorders in Arab Countries

DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.5915/40-3-5486 Genetic disorders are responsible for a significant proportion of perinatal morbidity, mortality, infant deaths, and handicaps. Their incidence in Arab countries is higher than in the developed world. This is attributed to ethnic diversity, consanguineous marriages, large family size, advanced maternal and paternal age, lack of resources that deal specifically with genetic diseases, lack of public awareness of the significance of genetic disease, reluctance of couples to receive preconception counseling and prenatal diagnosis, and religious and cultural concepts related to causation and dealing with diagnosed malformations. Suggested strategies to reduce the incidence of genetic diseases include: (1) public education, specifically about the role of consanguineous marriages and the correction of religious misconceptions; (2) providing premarital counseling services, family-oriented carrier screening, and family planning services; (3) improving preconception and prenatal care to include prenatal diagnostic services; (4) augmenting genetic services resources to include the human as well as lab components; (5) neonatal screening for metabolic disorders; (6) providing preimplantation genetic diagnosis services; (7) establishing databases of cases of genetic diseases; and (8) establishing ethical and religious guidelines for prenatal genetic diagnosis and for termination of pregancies complicated by fetal genetic diseases or malformations.
Pricing of Herding

We measure herding of trading activities by regressing individual order imbalances on market wide, industry wide, and dealer wide order imbalances. We find that stocks whose trading activities herd more have higher sensitivity of their returns to order imbalances. Investors demand compensations for herding. A 1% increase in the degree of herding this year predicts 8% increase in stock returns next year, after controlling for standard asset pricing factors and some of liquidity measures.
Marketing performance of salad vegetables: the case of cabbage marketing in Abia State, Nigeria.

This study analyzed the performance of cabbage marketing in Abia State, Nigeria. Specifically the study sought to: describe socio-economic characteristics of cabbage marketers; identify marketing channels of cabbage; determine marketing cost components of cabbage marketers; determine marketing margins, market share and marketing efficiency of cabbage marketers; and determine socio-economic factors influencing income of cabbage marketers. Multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select 160 marketers. Data were collected with use of structured questionnaire. The data collected were analyzed descriptively using means, frequencies, percentages, pie chart and flow chart and inferentially using marketing margin analysis, marketing efficiency analysis and ordinary least square regression technique. The study showed that cabbage marketing is not efficient but very profitable. The wholesalers and retailers had: marketing margin of N82.9 and N41.1; market share of 37.41% and 15.43%; and marketing efficiency of 160.60% and 167.40% respectively. Determinants of wholesaler’s income were household size, marketing experience, rent on storage, product price and transport cost, while household size, education level, other variable cost, product price and transport cost significantly influenced the retailer’s income. The study recommended that cabbage farmers in northern Nigeria should be encouraged, adequately motivated and instructed by the government and extension agents to form marketing cooperatives. This would help them pool resources together and transport their produce to farther points of consumption in-order to increase their market share and realize higher profit. This would also help to reduce the excess profit made by the marketers and improve the marketing efficiency of cabbage.
Exploring the Materialism and Conformity Motivations of Chinese Pirated Product Buyers

Abstract While Hong Kong and Mainland China are fused politically, they are in every other sense quite separate. Product piracy in China is a serious problem for multinationals wishing to do business there. This study attempts to gain a greater understanding of the profile of buyers of pirated products in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Issues examined include buyers purchasing behavior, materialistic attitudes and conformity motivation. Two major categories of pirated products were explored: pirated VCDs and pirated clothing and accessories. Personal interviews with more than 700 Hong Kong and Shanghai consumers who knowingly buy pirated products revealed that in both cities pirated products are most often purchased for the buyers and/or their families, and are identified mainly by their price and buying location. Shanghai tended to have a higher number of heavy buyers of pirated products than Hong Kong. Indeed, location was significant in predicting heavy and light pirated product buyers. While materialism did not effectively distinguish heavy from light buyers within either city, conformity was found to have a positive effect on the purchase of pirated VCDs in Hong Kong. Based on the findings, recommendations are made for reducing the market demand for pirated products, and for future research.
Radiofrequency in Cosmetic Dermatology: A Review

BACKGROUND Fine lines and rhytides are clinically evident signs of photodamage. Traditionally, ablative and nonablative lasers have been used for nonsurgical facial rejuvenation, but their side effects and downtime have limited their use. OBJECTIVE Radiofrequency (RF) is novel nonablative technology originally used to target photodamage. It differs from lasers in that it uses an electric current rather than a light source. It is frequently used in dermatology to treat skin laxity, rhytides, acne vulgaris and scarring, and cellulite. The goal of this review is to summarize the various types of RF devices and their uses and to determine the evidence‐based efficacy of these devices. MATERIALS AND METHODS This article reviews the current literature on RF, its uses and clinical effectiveness, and a practical guide for application of the assorted RF devices. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION Results have been favorable for the different clinical uses of RF, but many studies are nonrandomized, noncomparative trials that use subjective means of evaluation. Overall, nonablative RF is a safe, tolerable, and effective tool for skin rejuvenation and cellulite treatment that produces modest results. RF should serve as an alternative but not as an equivalent substitute to surgery.
High-frequency trading behaviour and its impact on market quality: evidence from the UK equity market

We analyse the intraday behaviour of high-frequency traders (HFTs) and its impact on aspects of market quality such as liquidity, price discovery and excess volatility. For that, we use a unique transactions data set for four UK stocks, over the period of a randomly selected week. Our data identifies the counterparties to each transaction, enabling us to track the trading behaviour of individual HFTs. We first find that HFTs differ significantly from each other in terms of liquidity provision: while some HFTs mostly consume liquidity (ie trade more ‘aggressively’) by primarily executing trades via market orders, others mostly supply liquidity (ie trade more ‘passively’) by primarily executing trades via limit orders. To examine how trading behaviour is related to these patterns of liquidity provision, we split the HFTs in two groups, according to their trade aggressiveness, and examine the behaviour and impact of each group separately. We find that the ‘passive’ HFTs follow a trading strategy consistent with market making and as such their trades have alternating signs and are independent of recent (ten-second) price changes. By contrast, ‘aggressive’ HFTs exhibit persistence in the direction of their trades and trade in line with the recent (ten-second) price trend. We then explore the relationship between HFT activity and market quality. We find that both higher price volatility and lower spreads cause HFT activity to increase. We suggest a number of reasons as to why this might be so. Finally, we use a tick time specification to examine the impact of HFT activity on price discovery (ie information-based volatility) and noise (ie excess volatility). We find that while HFTs have a higher information-to-noise contribution ratio than non-HFTs, there are instances where this is accompanied by a large absolute noise contribution.
Effects of pretreatment with microbial phytase on phosphorous utilization and growth performance of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus)

This study was to assess effects of the pretreatment in allplant based diets with microbial phytase on phosphorous utilization and growth performance of Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). Pretreatment trials were conducted using phytase at graded doses to determine the optimal dose of phytase. Available phosphorus (P) levels increased significantly with the increased doses of phytase and the dose of 1000 U kg )1 was most efficient. Based on the pretreatment trials, plant based diets for Nile tilapia were formulated by pretreating with phytase at 1000 U kg )1 . Experimental diets were supplemented with graded levels of mono calcium phosphate (MCP) at 25, 18.75, 12.5, 6.25 and 0 g kg )1 diet. In addition, there were three controls: one phytase control, one inorganic P control and one pretreatment control. The results showed that diets pretreated with phytase gave better growth performance, feed conversion ratio and protein efficiency ratio of Nile tilapia compared with the phytase control diet and pretreatment control diet (P 0.05), which resulted in significantly better performance than those at 6.25 and 0 g kg )1 (P 0.05).
A Web-Based Decision Support System for Tendering Processes

Web-based technology is increasingly being used for decision support system (DSS) applications. However, evaluation on Web-based DSS is still lack of general consensus about what constitutes decision quality that makes the evaluation of DSS difficult. Web-based survey was conducted to gather opinions, comments and suggestions from the experienced respondents in construction tendering processes. The results show that by using the Web-based DSS, it increases the efficiency of decision-making, improves understanding and increases confidence in the decisions taken.
The old, the new and the complicated ‐ A trilogy of marketing relationships

The boundaries of relationship marketing have been discussed since relationship marketing was first investigated in the 1970s. Investigating these boundaries, this paper reviews the links between relationship marketing and network theory. Three main themes of marketing relationships are identified: relationship marketing, neo‐relationship marketing and network theory. A framework is developed to allow for the positioning of these three themes of marketing relationships. While this framework has been developed in terms of a table, the intent is not to box theorists into neat positions but rather to develop an overall position statement for the three types of marketing relationships. Theorists can discuss marketing relationships depending on their position within the framework. Consequently, the framework allows for further development of relationship and neo‐relationship marketing by offering better applications for the practitioner, and enhances understanding of network theory. Suggestions are offered for the integration of marketing relationships into the marketing curriculum and further implications for marketing research are discussed.
Isolation and Characterization of Adriamycin-resistant HL-60 Cells Which Are Not Defective in the Initial Intracellular Accumulation of Drug 1

Two human leukemia cell lines (Molt-4 and HL-60) have been used for establishing cells which exhibit a low level resistance to Adriamycin. Analysis of drug uptake patterns shows that the Molt-4 resistant cells are defective in the initial intracellular accumulation of drug. In contrast to Molt-4 the levels of drug which accumulate in the sensitive and resistant HL-60 cells during a 60-min incubation period are essentially the same. However, when incubations are continued there is a major reduction in intracellular drug levels in the resistant cell. Further studies show that resistant cells incubated in the presence of drug for extended time periods efflux drug at a rate considerably greater than that exhibited by the sensitive parent line. Similar efflux patterns are obtained with nuclei isolated from drug-sensitive and -resistant cells. Additional studies using an in vitro phosphorylation system demonstrate distinct protein changes in membranes of Molt-4 and HL-60 resistant cells. Thus, we have found that a membrane fraction from the Molt-4 resistant line contains a M, 170,000 protein which is not detected in a similar fraction from cells sensitive to drug. HL-60 resistant membranes contain two proteins with molecular weights of 150,000 and 120,000 which are also not found in membranes from drug-sensitive cells. The results of this study suggest that drug resistance in HL-60 cells is related to an efflux mechanism which is triggered only after cells are exposed to drug for prolonged periods.
Cognitive Style and Consumer Innovativeness: An Empirical Test of Kirton's Adaption‐Innovation Theory in the Context of Food Purchasing

The identification of consumer innovators offers marketing managers the opportunity to tailor new products to the buyers who initiate the diffusion of innovations. Progress has been made in identifying such consumers in economic and social terms, but there are advantages of cost and convenience in isolating the personality profiles of innovators, during pre‐launch product testing. However, innovative consumer’s personality traits proved elusive. Reports an investigation of innovative brand choice in the context of new food purchasing employing the Kirton Adaption‐Innovation Inventory (KAI). This test of cognitive style correlates with several personality traits associated with innovativeness; it also has high validity in the prediction of behaviour. The research investigated the predictive validity of the KAI over a range of product continuity/discontinuity. The results suggest an operational measure of product continuity/discontinuity and supports the use of the KAI as a marketing tool.
Analysis of the oscillatory taylor-culick flow using the multiple time scale method

Research has shown that oscillatory or modulated flows can achieve a significant increase in heat transfer relative to the corresponding steady flow, providing that critical or threshold amplitude is achieved. The threshold condition is associated with the production of near-surface turbulence by the oscillatory motion. A similar process is hypothesized as a mechanism of highamplitude acoustic instability in solid propellant rockets, wherein finite amplitude acoustic motions can produce near-surface turbulence and lead to an enhanced propellant burning rate that couples with the chamber acoustics. Prediction of the threshold acoustic amplitude of propellant response requires prediction of the conditions leading to turbulent transition from near-laminar to a turbulent flow in the vicinity of the propellant surface as a prerequisite condition, and is thus a vicinity of the propellant surface as a prerequisite condition, and is thus a problem of hydrodynamic instability [1].
PERCEIVED ROLE OF BUSINESS NETWORKING ON THE PERFORMANCE OF WOMEN OWNED ENTERPRISES IN KENYA: A CASE STUDY OF KENYA ASSOCIATION OF WOMEN BUSINESS OWNERS

This study investigated the role of business networking in women owned enterprises in the context of the developing world and in Kenya in particular. There is hardly any evidence of studies undertaken on the role of business networking in women owned enterprises in Kenya and this study intended to fill this gap. The study used a case study research design. The target population of the study was women owned enterprises in Kenya. Purposive sampling was used to obtain a sample from the accessible population. Data was collected using semi-structured questionnaires. To pilot the research instrument, the study adopted face validity and Cronbach alpha reliability estimate. Both quantitative and qualitative techniques were used to analyze data. This study was expected to contribute to knowledge in the area of business networking of women business owners. The study results was expected to indicate if there were any significant relationships between structure of networks, relations in networks, in networks and performance of women owned enterprises in Kenya. Data was analyzed through Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for windows version 21. The study concluded that there was a very great role of business networking on the performance of women owned enterprises in Kenya. Structure of business networks, the different relations, were significant factors affecting the growth of businesses. The research findings were very important for the women entrepreneurs and any other person with the interest of these results. The researchers in the future will greatly benefit from the study’s findings. Key Words: Business Networking, Performance