Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measuring the Welfare Impact of Food Price Increases on Mexican Households (8/12/10 version for revision)

Food price increases in recent years reportedly caused significant increases in the number of poor households, particularly in the developing world. Many studies calculate welfare effects of food price changes with first-order measures assuming unchanged demand, following an early recommendation of Mellor (1978). These measures apply to households who have very limited substitution opportunities in their diets. When a developing nation reaches a level that allows even their poorest households to significantly diversify their food consumption, the first-order measure may significantly overstate welfare loses from food price changes. To demonstrate the difference in welfare measures we use a nationally representative, cross-sectional, Mexican household survey to estimate theoretically consistent consumer welfare losses due to the recent food price increases, and compare them to first-order measures. Our derived demand elasticities accurately predict changes in Mexican consumption patterns, as they allow for substitution within consumer food budgets. By quantifying consumer losses with compensating and equivalent variation our theoretically consistent results should assist policymakers and aid organizations to better target future assistance.
Oxidative stress in relation to adenosine deaminase, nitric oxide, nitric oxide synthase and xanthine oxidase in oral cavity cancer

Objective . Inflammation and oxidative stress are considered as the main pathways in oral cavity carcinoma . The aim of this study was to evaluate the activity levels of adenosine deaminase (ADA), nitric oxide (NO), nitric oxide synthase (NOS), and xanthine oxidase (XO) in oral cavity carcinoma, to determine their potential roles in carcinogenesis with relation to oxidative stress. Methods. Seventeen patients with oral cavity cancer underwent surgery as the primary therapy, were consisted in the study. Resected oral cavity carcinoma tissues were compared with the adjacent tumor-free control tissues of the same patients; ADA, NO, NOS, XO activity levels were evaluated in terms of difference. Results. There is a significant increase of ADA activity in squamous cell cancer tissues, which indicates a difference between the normal and tumor tissues at enzyme levels ( p <0.001). Conclusion. Elevated ADA activity might be an attempt to supress formation of the immunosupressed niche which promotes the onset of neoplasia and/or to inhibit tumor progression and metastasis.
Mathematical knowledge is related to understanding stocks and flows: results from two nations

Stocks and flows (SF) are essential to every-day judgments: debt changes with rates of incomes and expenses, and body weight with calories consumed and energy expended. Research suggests that individuals with strong mathematical skills have a poor understanding of SF. However, past research used homogeneous participant samples and the relationship between mathematical knowledge and performance in SF tasks was not tested. In two studies involving different populations from China and the U.S.A, we find that individuals with better general mathematical knowledge tend to be more accurate in SF tasks. We find that most participants who make mistakes follow an erroneous correlation heuristic; however, we also find that the use of this heuristic is not related to mathematical knowledge. Our results open the door to new research questions, including the type of mathematical knowledge needed and the relationship of mathematical knowledge and cognitive processes that people need for solving SF tasks. Copyright © 2015 System Dynamics Society
Testing the Regulatory Threat Hypothesis

We argue that during the 1979 oil crisis major domestic oil companies held down price increases of politically sensitive oil products relative to their foreign counterparts to reduce the probability of adverse government action. To test this "regulatory threat" hypothesis, we compare the reaction of unregulated fuel oil prices to political pressure. We measure political pressure with the level of U.S. television coverage of energy issues. We find that media coverage influenced U.S. home heating oil prices charged by domestic oil companies, but not foreign oil companies. In contrast, for the less politically sensitive residual fuel oil, media coverage did not influence prices of either domestic or foreign oil companies.
Supercritical CO2 and ionic liquids for the pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass in bioethanol production

Owing to high petroleum prices, there has been a major push in recent years to use lignocellulosic biomass as biorefinery feedstocks. Unfortunately, by nature's design, lignocellulosic biomass is notoriously recalcitrant. Cellulose is the most abundant renewable carbon source on the planet and comprises glucan polysaccharides which self-assemble into paracrystalline microfibrils. The extent of cellulose crystallinity largely contributes to biomass recalcitrance. Additionally, cellulose microfibrils are embedded into both hemicellulose and lignin polymeric networks, making cellulose accessibility an additional obstacle. Pretreatment is necessary before enzymatic hydrolysis in order to liberate high yields of glucose and other fermentable sugars from biomass polysaccharides. This work discusses two pretreatment methods, supercritical CO2 and ionic liquids (ILs). Both methods utilize green solvents that do not emit toxic vapours. Mechanisms for destroying or weakening biomass recalcitrance have been explored. Various pretreatment operating parameters such as temperature, pressure, time, dry biomass/solvent ratio, water content, etc. have been investigated for the pretreatment of various biomass types such as corn stover, switchgrass, sugarcane bagasse, soft and hard wood. The two pretreatment methods have their pros and cons. For example, supercritical CO2 explosion pretreatment uses inexpensive CO2, but requires a high pressure. By comparison, while IL pretreatment does not require an elevated pressure, ILs are still too expensive for large-scale uses. Further research and development are needed to make the two green pretreatment methods practical.
PREVALENCE OF MINOR PSYCHIATRIC MORBIDITY AMONG FEMALE TEACHERS IN GIRLS SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN TABUK CITY, SAUDI ARABIA

Objectives: Teachers are at the risk of developing minor psychiatric morbidity (MPM) because of the stressfulness of their job. This may lead to a significant decrease in their teaching effectiveness and to the development of serious health problems, if not detected early and managed appropriately. The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of MPM among female teachers in girls’ secondary schools in Tabuk, and to analyze certain important associated demographic characteristics. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study. First, a proportional cluster sample was selected randomly from the three sectors of schools in Tabuk, from which female teachers (198 out of a total of 517) in the selected schools were included in the study. Data on MPM and demographic characteristics were collected by means of the General Health Questionnaire 30 (GHQ30), a validated and extensively used instrument for identifying MPM Results: Out of 198 participants, 187 completed the GHQ30 giving a response rate of 94.4%. The prevalence of MPM among them was 59.4% (111 participants). The variables with a statistically significant association with MPM were as follows: young age, nationality, positive participant psychiatric history, family history of medical and/or psychiatric problems, and divorced and widowed. No statistically significant associations were found with participants’ medical problems or their mental status, either single or married, housing type, monthly income, the number of children in a family, and the number of family members. Conclusion: The finding of a high prevalence of MPM (59.4%) indicates that all participants may be at risk. Hence, appropriate and timely management, as well as social support are needed. Studies focusing on the causes and how to manage them will also be required.
Supplementary Material for Privacy Preserving Optics for Miniature Vision Sensors

Face images from the Feret database [3] were convolved with a Gaussian filter and inputed to the CSU Face Identification Evaluation System (FES) [1]. Both the gallery and probe images were convolved with the Gaussian filter before being inputed to the FES. The probe images were convolved with the Gaussian filter to simulate optical defocus. The gallery images were convolved with the Gaussian filter to improve recognition of the filtered probe images [2]. The fa and fb partitions were set as the gallery and probe images Figure 2. Recognition Rate vs Standard Deviation (Blur Degree)
Shaky Roads and Trembling Exports: Assessing the Trade Effects of Domestic Transport Costs Using a Natural Experiment

Our knowledge of the trade effects of domestic transport costs is very limited. The reason is twofold. First, data needed to examine these effects are not readily available. Second, properly identifying such effects requires successfully addressing potential endogeneity problems affecting the relationship between internal transport costs as determined by infrastructure and trade. In this paper, we overcome these limitations by combining highly disaggregated firm-level data with detailed geo-referenced information on Chile and by exploiting the 2010 earthquake that took place in this country as an exogenous source of variation in those transport costs. We find that increased costs had a negative impact on firms' exports. Interestingly, this impact seems to be confined to large firms and appears to be primarily driven by a reduction in the number of shipments.
Enhanced Blind Equalization for Optical DP-QAM in Finite Precision Hardware

In this letter, we apply the inverse QR decomposition-constant modulus algorithm (IQRD-CMA), blind equalization technique, for impaired 14 GBd DP-16 quadratic-amplitude modulation optical modulated signal. The IQRD-CMA is considered here to mitigate the effect of residual chromatic dispersion (CD) and polarization mode dispersion (PMD). We evaluate the performance of the proposed inverse QR decomposition in terms of convergence rate, steady-state/residual mean square error (MSE), and bit error rate (BER), in comparison with standard blind constant modulus algorithm (CMA) and recursive least squares (RLS-CMA). Assuming infinite precision, the IQRD-CMA and RLS-CMA achieve similar performance and induce the same computational complexity; however, both largely outperform standard CMA for wide ranges of CD and PMD. However, for finite precision hardware, compared with RLS-CMA, the proposed blind IQRD-CMA clearly achieves one order of BER magnitude at 8- and 10-b resolutions, and further reduces the steady-state MSE by 3 dB. Moreover, results show that IQRD-CMA maintains the system stability at acceptable number of bits resolutions. In addition, this letter addresses the tradeoff between the complexity and the performance of all these equalizers for several precision settings.
Lithium: long‐term effects on the kidney I. Renal function in retrospect

ABSTRACT— 46 patients treated with lithium for an average of 8 years participated in a functional‐morphological follow‐up study based on a 12‐day hospitalization and involving a kidney biopsy. The functional part of the study showed that tubular function was markedly influenced, leading to increased urine volume (average 3 1/24 h) and a decreased renal concentration capacity in 85% of the patients. Glomerular function was generally not influenced, and only 10% of the patients had glomerular filtration rates below their age‐corrected normal ranges. Both urine volume and glomerular filtration rates showed significant correlations with dosage schedule. Urine volume was lower and glomerular filtration rate higher on a one‐dose schedule than when lithium was given in divided doses during the day. It is concluded that discontinuity in lithium treatment minimizes lithium effects on kidney function.
A quantitative analysis of the cat retinal ganglion cell topography

A retinal ganglion cell distribution map has been prepared for the cresyl violet stained cat retina. It differs from previously published maps in revealing the visual streak to be more substantial and in showing a higher peak density of 9–10,000 ganglion cells/mm2 at the presumed visual pole. The map was used to obtain a minimum estimate of the retinal ganglion cell population as 217,000 cells, more than double the total previously reported. The problem of classifying the cells of the ganglion cell layer is discussed in detail and examples of criterion cells illustrated. The paper also includes an account of retinal mensuration (dimensions, area, etc.) and a discussion of the visual streak orientation.
Identification of Novel Endogenous Betaretroviruses Which Are Transcribed in the Bovine Placenta

ABSTRACT Sequences of retroviral origin occupy approximately 10% of mammalian genomes. Various infectious endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) and functional retroviral elements have been reported for several mammals but not cattle. Here, we identified two proviruses, designated bovine endogenous retrovirus K1 (BERV-K1) and BERV-K2, containing full-length envelope (env) genes in the bovine genome. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that they belong to the genus Betaretrovirus. By reverse transcription (RT)-PCR, both BERV-K1 and -K2 env mRNAs were detected in the placenta and cultured bovine trophoblast cells. Real-time RT-PCR analysis using RNAs isolated from various bovine tissues revealed that BERV-K1 env mRNA was preferentially expressed in the placenta. Moreover, we also found the expression of doubly spliced transcripts, named the REBK1 and REBK2 genes. Both the REBK1 and REBK2 proteins have motifs for a putative nuclear localization signal and a nuclear export signal. REBK1 and REBK2 fused with green fluorescent proteins were localized mainly in the nuclei when they were expressed in bovine and porcine cells. In the env and 3′ long terminal repeats of BERV-K1 and -K2, we found regulatory elements responsible for the splicing and transport of viral RNAs and/or translation of the env genes. Although we have not identified the expressed Env proteins in bovine tissues, these data suggest that both BERV-K1 and BERV-K2 express Env proteins and that these proteins may have physiological functions in vivo.
Total cost of ownership along the supply chain: a model applied to the tinting industry

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is a consolidated purchasing tool applied across different industries. However, in some cases, existing models are not satisfactory. The paper analyses the tinting industry, where manufacturers of colourant dispensing machines sell products and related services to paint producers, who install them in retail stores to sell the colour paints to the final consumers. Authors develop a TCO model integrating those existing in literature and including the following specifications: (i) all relevant costs along the product life cycle are considered; (ii) both goods and service-related costs are considered; (iii) both explicit and hidden costs are considered; (iv) the model adapts to the perspectives of various actors in the supply chain. The TCO model is tested with real data and provides useful insights on real costs sustained by each actor.
Suitability of various membrane lipophilic probes for the detection of trogocytosis by flow cytometry

Trogocytosis is a recently discovered phenomenon whereby lymphocytes capture fragments of the plasma membrane from antigen presenting cells (APCs). Using APCs labeled with widely used fluorescent lipophilic probes, we previously described a trogocytosis analysis protocol (TRAP) useful to understand the mechanisms and biological consequences of this process and to identify lymphocytes reacting specifically with antigen‐bearing APCs. We have compared the suitability of 22 different fluorescent lipophilic probes for use in TRAP assays with cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL). The criteria we used were: simple and efficient incorporation in APC membranes, minimal passive diffusion among cells but efficient transfer onto T cells during trogocytosis. Sphingosin‐based probes were found to incorporate inefficiently into cells. For others with unsaturated lipid chains, we found a tendency for extensive passive diffusion. In the end, about a third of the probes tested were found to be suitable in TRAP assays, which all carry either C16 or C18 saturated carbon chains, including some that can be excited with a red laser. Moreover, we found it possible to combine TRAP assays based on lipophilic probes with intracellular cytokine detection. We have identified a set of new lipophilic fluorescent probes suitable for TRAP assays in combination with intracellular staining. © 2008 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry
Organisational change under transcultural project leadership: developing a survey instrument

This research seeks to develop a theoretical model of transcultural project leadership (TPL) based on a conceptual framework crafted from the literature and populated and progressively validated by primary data drawn from international project practitioners. A composite multifactor leadership questionnaire (MLQ)-TPL survey instrument was developed with a view to: conducting an international quantitative survey across industries, countries and project sizes; contributing to the literature on organisational leadership, project management and cross-cultural management; informing best practice among project practitioners; aiding the selection, deployment and evaluation of international project managers and developing a theory of transcultural project leadership to facilitate greater understanding of HR issues when undertaking organisational change.
Properties of the Amylase from Halobacterium halobium

Halobacterium halobium amylase had optimal activity at pH 6.4 to 6.6 in sodium β-glycerophosphate buffer containing 0.05% NaCl at 55 C; Ca2+ was not required. End products from amylose were maltose, maltotriose, and glucose. The amylase, which was devoid of transglucosylase activity, had a multichain attack mechanism.
Phagosome Acidification Has Opposite Effects on Intracellular Survival of Bordetella pertussis andB. bronchiseptica

ABSTRACT Bordetella pertussis is readily killed after uptake by professional phagocytes, whereas its close relative Bordetella bronchiseptica is not and can persist intracellularly for days. Phagocytosis of members of either species by a mouse macrophage cell line results in transport of the bacteria to a phagosomal compartment positive for the lysosome-associated membrane protein 1, the protease cathepsin D, and the late endosomal vacuolar proton-pumping ATPase but negative for the early endosome antigen 1 and the early endosomal transferrin receptor. In addition, we demonstrate thatBordetella-containing phagosomes rapidly acidify to pH 4.5 to 5.0. Taken together, these data demonstrate thatBordetella-containing phagosomes rapidly mature to an acidic late endosomal/lysosomal compartment. Following up on this observation, we determined that B. pertussis does not survive in bacterial growth media adjusted to a pH of 4.5, whereas this pH has only minor effects on the growth of B. bronchiseptica. Raising the intracellular pH in infected macrophages by the addition of bafilomycin A1, ammonium chloride, or monensin increases the survival of acid-sensitive B. pertussis but, surprisingly, decreases that of acid-tolerantB. bronchiseptica. In summary, we hypothesize that the differential survival of B. pertussis and B. bronchiseptica in macrophages is, at least in part, due to the differences in their acid tolerance.
The impact of FDI inflows on real GDP in Estonia: Evidence from a cointegration approach and causality test

Theoretically, it is believed that FDI is a principal factor supporting and accelerating economic enhancement of an economy over the years. FDI boosts the productivity of host countries and promotes economic development, as FDI may not only provide direct capital financing, but may also create positive externalities via the adoption of foreign technology and know-how. In this paper we focus our attention on Estonia, as a (former) transition economy. Estonia stands out as one of the most successful ones in terms of economic growth and institutional changes among former command economies, as in less than two decades Estonia has been able to build functioning market-economy-institutions virtually from scratch and has joined the European Union (EU) and the Euro-zone. This paper, using cointegration methodology for the period of 1994:Q1-2013:Q2 focuses on the causal relationship between FDI and real GDP in Estonia. The real GDP data is obtained from Eurostat (2005 = 100) while the FDI data is obtained from the Bank of Estonia. Exploring the cointegration test is done through two methods: the residual-based test of Engle and Granger (1987) and Johansen’s methodology. The cointegration tests require that series to be integrated of order one. For this reason we first test for the existence of a unit root using Augmented Dickey Fuller unit root test (ADF, 1979, 1981), and Kwiatkowski et al. (KPSS, 1992). We further investigate the causal relationship using Granger Causality analysis and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). The stationarity tests show that the variables are integrated of order 1, confirming that FDI and GDP are not stationary. The Engle-Granger method shows that FDI and real GDP are not cointegrated. Continuing with Johansen Cointegration Test, which is more generally applicable than the Engle-Granger method, the findings indicate that both the real GDP and FDI series are cointegrated, hence, the variables have long term relationship in that they will not deviate arbitrarily from each other and that their deviations from long run equilibrium path are corrected. Finally, Granger Causality test provides evidence that GDP does respond to changes in FDI in the long run but not in the short run, besides FDI does Granger cause real GDP. Our findings demonstrate that FDI can be very useful for Estonia, and it will be interesting to examine whether such findings are essentially due to large share of FDI in the banking sector and/or due to large share of FDI from high-income countries.