Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Immunization of Primates with a Newcastle Disease Virus-Vectored Vaccine via the Respiratory Tract Induces a High Titer of Serum Neutralizing Antibodies against Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza Virus

ABSTRACT The ongoing outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) in birds, the incidence of transmission to humans with a resulting high mortality rate, and the possibility of a human pandemic warrant the development of effective human vaccines against HPAIV. We developed an experimental live-attenuated vaccine for direct inoculation of the respiratory tract based on recombinant avian Newcastle disease virus (NDV) expressing the hemagglutinin (HA) glycoprotein of H5N1 HPAIV (NDV-HA). Expression of the HPAIV HA gene slightly reduced NDV virulence, as evidenced by the increased mean embryo death time and reduced replication in chickens. NDV-HA was administered to African green monkeys in two doses of 2 × 107 infectious units each with a 28-day interval to evaluate the systemic and local antibody responses specific to H5N1 HPAIV. The virus was shed only at low titers from the monkeys, indicative of safety. Two doses of NDV-HA induced a high titer of H5N1 HPAIV-neutralizing serum antibodies in all of the immunized monkeys. Moreover, a substantial mucosal immunoglobulin A response was induced in the respiratory tract after one and two doses. The titers of neutralizing antibodies achieved in this study suggest that the vaccine would be likely to prevent mortality and reduce morbidity caused by the H5N1 HPAIV. In addition, induction of a local immune response in the respiratory tract is an important advantage that is likely to reduce or prevent transmission of the virus during an outbreak or a pandemic. This vaccine is a candidate for clinical evaluation in humans.
Arabidopsis Glutathione Transferases U24 and U25 Exhibit a Range of Detoxification Activities with the Environmental Pollutant and Explosive, 2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene1[C][W][OPEN]

Two glutathione transferase enzymes are involved in making the explosive, environmental pollutant, 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene less toxic in Arabidopsis plants. The explosive 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) is a major worldwide military pollutant. The presence of this toxic and highly persistent pollutant, particularly at military sites and former manufacturing facilities, presents various health and environmental concerns. Due to the chemically resistant structure of TNT, it has proven to be highly recalcitrant to biodegradation in the environment. Here, we demonstrate the importance of two glutathione transferases (GSTs), GST-U24 and GST-U25, from Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) that are specifically up-regulated in response to TNT exposure. To assess the role of GST-U24 and GST-U25, we purified and characterized recombinant forms of both enzymes and demonstrated the formation of three TNT glutathionyl products. Importantly, GST-U25 catalyzed the denitration of TNT to form 2-glutathionyl-4,6-dinitrotoluene, a product that is likely to be more amenable to subsequent biodegradation in the environment. Despite the presence of this biochemical detoxification pathway in plants, physiological concentrations of GST-U24 and GST-U25 result in only a limited innate ability to cope with the levels of TNT found at contaminated sites. We demonstrate that Arabidopsis plants overexpressing GST-U24 and GST-U25 exhibit significantly enhanced ability to withstand and detoxify TNT, properties that could be applied for in planta detoxification of TNT in the field. The overexpressing lines removed significantly more TNT from soil and exhibited a corresponding reduction in glutathione levels when compared with wild-type plants. However, in the absence of TNT, overexpression of these GSTs reduces root and shoot biomass, and although glutathione levels are not affected, this effect has implications for xenobiotic detoxification.
The Demand for Money, the "Reform Effect," and the Money Supply Process in Hyperinflations: The Evidence from Greece and Hungary II Reexamined

Newly uncovered data on money and prices in Greece and Hungary duri ng their hyperinflations are used to reestimate the Cagan money demand equation and to repeat the Sargent and Wallace causality tests. It is no longer necessary to exclude observations at the end of each episo de on the premise that they represent the response to an anticipated monetary reform. The results for each country now conform to the Sargent and Wallace findings for most other hyperinflation episodes-that causality runs from prices to money (i.e., that money is endogenous). Copyright 1988 by Ohio State University Press.
Recruitment to retention : post-graduation adaptation of international students

Coupled with strategic and recent immigration policy shifts, Canada has taken substantial efforts to recruit and retain international students. Viewed as a future Canadian-educated skilled workforce, international students will become part of the country’s future economic prosperity and labour-market. This study explores the impact of immigration policies that are rooted in the post-graduation adaptation of twenty former international students (FIS) through semi-structured interviews. Drawing from on the stress-adaptation-growth dynamic theory, the findings suggest previous experience of studying at the post-secondary level in Canada plays a role in the studentto-work transition. In addition, internal and external factors impact the stress and adaptation of FIS during their post-graduation transition as well as influence future intentions to apply for permanent residence. Oscillating between two choices, clear immigration policies and crucial support to enter and contribute to the Canadian labour market are necessary to retain international students. Discourse on future research is explored.
Investigating the impact of feedback update interval on the efficacy of restorative brain–computer interfaces

Restorative brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) have been proposed to enhance stroke rehabilitation. Restorative BCIs are able to close the sensorimotor loop by rewarding motor imagery (MI) with sensory feedback. Despite the promising results from early studies, reaching clinically significant outcomes in a timely fashion is yet to be achieved. This lack of efficacy may be due to suboptimal feedback provision. To the best of our knowledge, the optimal feedback update interval (FUI) during MI remains unexplored. There is evidence that sensory feedback disinhibits the motor cortex. Thus, in this study, we explore how shorter than usual FUIs affect behavioural and neurophysiological measures following BCI training for stroke patients using a single-case proof-of-principle study design. The action research arm test was used as the primary behavioural measure and showed a clinically significant increase (36%) over the course of training. The neurophysiological measures including motor evoked potentials and maximum voluntary contraction showed distinctive changes in early and late phases of BCI training. Thus, this preliminary study may pave the way for running larger studies to further investigate the effect of FUI magnitude on the efficacy of restorative BCIs. It may also elucidate the role of early and late phases of motor learning along the course of BCI training.
Potassium activated phosphatase from human red blood cells. The mechanism of potassium activation

1. The kinetic behaviour of the K‐activated phosphatase in human red blood cell membranes has been investigated. The concentration of Mg required to give optimal activation is independent of substrate and K concentration, suggesting that Mg combines with the enzyme at a site that is independent of and non‐interacting with the substrate and K sites.
Interconnect Capacitive Modeling in Submicron and NanoTechnologies

In this paper, we propose an analytical model to compute parasitic coupling capacitance between interconnects on different layers and substrate capacitance. In this method, electric flux is geometrically approximated to model the different capacitive components which combine to determine the overall equivalent capacitance. Based on our approach, capacitances of typical interconnect geometries can be efficiently computed. The proposed model is verified in comparison with several published methods as well as the extracted results from commercial tools. The experiments show that our proposed method can best approximate the extracted results but with reduced computation time.
Organic pest management decisions: a systems approach to technology adoption

Organic farmers make system‐level crop protection decisions that combine complementary insect, disease, nematode, and weed management strategies. Data from a 1997 national survey of U.S. organic farmers were used in a multivariate count data model to identify the farm and regional factors influencing the adoption of practices across the linked pest management categories. The results show that weed management requires the greatest management effort by organic farmers. More intensive information‐seeking and on‐farm experimentation, higher educational attainment, and intensity of commitment to organic farming are positively related to the number of weed control strategies adopted. Predictions of adoption based on this model and customized to farm and region specifications will give information providers lead time to develop technical support for reduced chemical pest management systems.
Microarray-Based Detection of Salmonella enterica Serovar Enteritidis Genes Involved in Chicken Reproductive Tract Colonization

ABSTRACT Salmonella enterica serovar Enteritidis has developed the potential to contaminate table eggs internally, by colonization of the chicken reproductive tract and internalization in the forming egg. The serotype Enteritidis has developed mechanisms to colonize the chicken oviduct more successfully than other serotypes. Until now, the strategies exploited by Salmonella Enteritidis to do so have remained largely unknown. For that reason, a microarray-based transposon library screen was used to identify genes that are essential for the persistence of Salmonella Enteritidis inside primary chicken oviduct gland cells in vitro and inside the reproductive tract in vivo. A total of 81 genes with a potential role in persistence in both the oviduct cells and the oviduct tissue were identified. Major groups of importance include the Salmonella pathogenicity islands 1 and 2, genes involved in stress responses, cell wall, and lipopolysaccharide structure, and the region-of-difference genomic islands 9, 21, and 40.
Joachim Daiber Robust Parsing of Noisy Content Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics

While parsing performance on in-domain text has developed steadily in recent years, out-of-domain text and grammatically noisy text remain an obstacle and oen lead to significant decreases in parsing accuracy. In this thesis, we focus on the parsing of noisy content, such as user-generated content in services like Twier. We investigate the question whether a preprocessing step based on machine translation techniques and unsupervised models for text-normalization can improve parsing performance on noisy data. Existing data sets are evaluated and a new data set for dependency parsing of grammatically noisy Twier data is introduced. We show that text-normalization together with a combination of domain-specific and generic part-of-speech taggers can lead to a significant improvement in parsing accuracy.
EVALUATING THE NET ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF FREE TRADE ZONES IN THEORY AND PRACTICE: APPLIED TO THE KINGSTON EXPORT FREE ZONE IN JAMAICA.

In recent years there has been a rapid growth in the number of Free Trade Zones (FTZs) around the World. The main purpose of this dissertation is to lay out a theoretical and empirical framework for evaluating such zones. The Kingston Export Free Zone (KFZ) is the main subject of the dissertation. Available theoretical works do not provide conclusive and unified results concerning the sign of net benefits conferred upon host countries by FTZs. The prevailing view is that empirical case studies represent the most suitable approach to determining whether a particular FTZ is beneficial to the host country. Case studies on several FTZs around the World have provided mixed results regarding their merits. The main contribution of this dissertation is an economic evaluation of the KFZ. The first part of the dissertation outlines the relevant literature on FTZs and cost-benefit analysis. This provides the foundation for the economic evaluation in the second part which focuses on the KFZ's development, incentives, costs and benefits. The techniques and problems of estimating net benefits are outlined. In addition, problems associated with separating ! ocat;cna! p diverted and incremem! investxent are addressed. The naturc of k s e problems dictates that sensitivity analysis must be used in the economic evaluation. This weakens the study to the extent that definitive results cannot be reached. However, the realistic scenario considered in the evaluation shows that the KFZ confers substantial positive net benefits on Jamaica. In fact, only in very pessimistic scenarios are net benefits found to be negative.
Enhancing Brand Equity Through Sustainability: Waste Recycling

Unlike many existing research studies that explain reverse marketing from a purchasing perspective, this study recognizes it as an honest effort made by managers aiming to promote sustainability by purposefully managing waste and discusses the spillover effect of their initiatives on brand equity. It argues that efficient recycling of products through reverse marketing by a brand demonstrates its sincere intent to adopt sustainable business practices and enhances its equity in the marketplace. A business-to-business viewpoint has been used to combine knowledge about waste recycling and management through reverse marketing based on the unpretentious operations and management practices. The propositions reflect on the criticality of engaging business customer firms in a procedural mechanism of recycling for increase in brand equity as the success of reverse marketing. A comprehensive adoption of an initiative like waste management through reverse marketing by a brand highlights how sustainability initiatives can create value for the customers of the brand and ultimately drive brand equity. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The Relationship between Experience and Self-Perceptions of Knowledge and Relevance of Teaching Competencies of Faculty in a College of Agricultural and Life Sciences

There has been a call for faculty at academic institutions to improve the quality of their educational programs. Previous research findings have found that the size and focus of the institution impacts the quality and resources given to instructional activities. However, it has been noted that traditionally research–focused institutions now are beginning to appreciate the role and importance of their academic programs. Researchers designed this study to describe the differences existing among faculty’s self– perceived knowledge and relevance of teaching competencies to deliver academic programs. A web– based questionnaire designed with three distinct set of questions regarding instructional and teaching needs was administered to a convenience sample of College of Agricultural and Life Sciences faculty at the University of Florida. Faculty reported low self–perceptions in the area of distance delivery. Characteristics such as faculty appointment and rank were found to impact perceptions toward teaching as well. Recommendations for further research and programmatic development were provided.
Research on Web-of-Trust-Based Personalized Seller Recommendation Algorithm for E-Commerce

Trust evaluation and personalized recommendation are two challenge problems in large scale e-commerce applications. In this paper, we present a novel web-of-trust-based personalized seller recommendation algorithm. Starting from transaction-related data and trading relationship, the buyer-buyer web-of-trust and buyer-seller web-of-trust for recommendation and related concepts are formally defined. The method of constructing the web-of-trust is discussed. The algorithms computing direct trust and recommending trust between buyers based on web-of-trust are presented, and the algorithm for computing direct trust of the buyer in the seller is described. Aiming at the needs of the user intending to buy a specific product, the web-of-trust-based personalized seller recommendation algorithm is proposed, which can be used to find the most trustworthy seller selling the specified product for the buyer. The algorithms for computing direct trust of the recommender in target seller and comprehensive trust of the requester in target seller are designed. Using an example, the process of generating seller recommendation is described, and the recommendation results are analyzed.
Hepatitis C Virus Stimulates the Phosphatidylinositol 4-Kinase III Alpha-Dependent Phosphatidylinositol 4-Phosphate Production That Is Essential for Its Replication

ABSTRACT Phosphatidylinositol 4-kinase III alpha (PI4KA) is an essential cofactor of hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication. We initiated this study to determine whether HCV directly engages PI4KA to establish its replication. PI4KA kinase activity was found to be absolutely required for HCV replication using a small interfering RNA transcomplementation assay. Moreover, HCV infection or subgenomic HCV replicons produced a dramatic increase in phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate (PI4P) accumulation throughout the cytoplasm, which partially colocalized with the endoplasmic reticulum. In contrast, the majority of PI4P accumulated at the Golgi bodies in uninfected cells. The increase in PI4P was not observed after infection with UV-inactivated HCV and did not reflect changes in PI4KA protein or RNA abundance. In an analysis of U2OS cell lines with inducible expression of the HCV polyprotein or individual viral proteins, viral polyprotein expression resulted in enhanced cytoplasmic PI4P production. Increased PI4P accumulation following HCV protein expression was precluded by silencing the expression of PI4KA, but not the related PI4KB. Silencing PI4KA also resulted in aberrant agglomeration of viral replicase proteins, including NS5A, NS5B, and NS3. NS5A alone, but not other viral proteins, stimulated PI4P production in vivo and enhanced PI4KA kinase activity in vitro. Lastly, PI4KA coimmunoprecipitated with NS5A from infected Huh-7.5 cells and from dually transfected 293T cells. In sum, these results suggest that HCV NS5A modulation of PI4KA-dependent PI4P production influences replication complex formation.
Collaboration, Co-Production, Networks: Convergence of theories

Abstract This article suggests a framework to study service delivery networks that draws on the theories of collaboration, co-production, and networks combined. We introduce four dimensions of co-production under ‘coproduction-oriented collaborations’. This framework allows us to ‘zoom in and zoom out’ when we study networks. Using the case method approach, the framework is applied to analyse four networks in Singapore. Findings suggest that network process, network structure, and characteristics of actors are crucial to a network’s performance and coproduction’s effectiveness. This article also offers implications for practice that in certain contexts the usage of these concepts is for managerial effectiveness and not for enhancing democratic values.
“Subsistence Agriculture”: Analytical Problems and Alternative Concepts

This article argues that the concept of "subsistence agriculture"—widely encountered and long used in the literature—is not meaningful enough to be analytically useful as usually employed and should be abandoned. Particularly important for policy is the fact that use of the term "subsistence agriculture" leads to implicitly treating all small-scale agriculture as a homogeneous residual made up of producers who vary little in their potential contribution to economic development. Data are presented which strongly suggest that small-scale agriculture in less-developed countries is not homogeneous so far as decision-making situations are concerned. The second half of the article considers development of an alternative set of criteria for classifying small-scale farmers that would reflect meaningful differences in decision-making experience and decision-making situations. A tentative set of such criteria for which data are now available, or could be developed with relative ease, are presented to illustrate the relevance of such a classification for development planning and policy.
History of Family Suicide Behaviors and Negative Problem Solving in Multiple Suicide Attempters

ABSTRACT This study examined the relationship between family history of suicide, negative problem solving orientation and suicide attempt status (multiple suicide attempters versus single suicide attempters). Suicide attempters with a family history of suicide were more likely to have multiple suicide attempts when compared to suicide attempters who did not have a family history of suicide. This relationship was consistent with a model in which the relationship between family history and suicide attempt status is mediated by negative problem solving. Results of this study are discussed as they pertain to the theory and treatment of suicide attempters.
The Price Responsiveness of the Demand for Labour by Skill: British Mechanical Engineering: 1963-1978

It is commonplace in labour economics that employment changes in response to exogenous shifts in wages and aggregate demand depend, among other factors, on the degree of skill. Since the pioneering work of Oi (I962) and Rosen (I968) little work has been done in investigating this issue in the British context and this paper will attempt to remedy this deficiency. We estimate a singular, dynamic, three-skill labour demand system using time series data for British Mechanical Engineering. We then calculate substitution, wage and output elasticities for the demand for each kind of labour. In such an analysis we must decide on two issues. First, the specification of technology. Second, the modelling of dynamics. In tackling the first issue we rely on the theory of duality (Samuelson, I947; Shephard, I953; Diewert, I97I) in choosing a model based on the cost function. A cost function approach is advantageous for the following reasons. First Shephard's Lemma allows us to move conveniently from any cost function to the cost-minimising factor demands that underlie it. Second, the cost function has factor prices as explanatory variables which may be regarded as exogenous at the industry level. Third, the elasticities we seek to estimate are linear functions of the parameter estimates. Fourth, the cost function is homogeneous of degree one in prices but this does not imply constant returns to scale (see Binswanger, I974a). The use of a cost function approach permits fewer constraints to be imposed on the production process. In choosing the functional form we follow Binswanger (I974 a, b), Berndt and Wood (I975), Kesselman et al. (I977) and Layard (I983) in estimating the translog cost function which was first proposed by Christensen et al. (I97I). The generality of this functional form lies, first, in placing no apriori restrictions on the elasticities of substitution and, second, in that it may be regarded as a secondorder Taylor series approximation to any arbitrary cost function near the equilibrium. The factor demand system derived from the translog cost function is static and holds only in equilibrium. However, the existence of convex adjustments costs and of imperfections involved in obtaining information imply that there is some delay in adjusting employment to its desired level following exogenous wage and