Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adenovirus type 5 E1A gene therapy for ovarian clear cell carcinoma: a potential treatment strategy

Resistance of ovarian clear cell carcinoma (CCC) to platinum-based chemotherapy is associated with poor prognosis, and an effective treatment for advanced disease is urgently needed. HER2/neu is up-regulated more often in CCC than in other histologic types of epithelial ovarian cancer. The purpose of this study was to assess possible treatment for ovarian CCC with the anti-HER2 antibody trastuzumab or human adenovirus type 5 E1A. We treated 10 CCC cell lines with trastuzumab or E1A and assessed cell viability, proliferation, and colony formation and the expression of HER2 and wild-type p53 proteins and molecules downstream of those signaling pathways. HER2 protein was detected at various levels in all 10 cell lines by Western blotting and in 5 CCC cell lines by immunohistochemical staining; HER2 gene amplification was detected (by fluorescence in situ hybridization) in only one cell line (RMG-I). Trastuzumab did not inhibit proliferation in any of the four CCC cell lines tested (RMG-I, SKOV-2, OVTOKO, and OVSAYO). However, transfection with E1A (as compared with control vectors) reduced colony formation in all 10 CCC cell lines regardless of HER2 expression level. Infection of RMG-I and SMOV-2 cells with an adenoviral vector encoding E1A led to significant (P < 0.05) suppression of proliferation and enhancement of cell death; this effect required stabilization of p53 (but not p73) protein and was associated with the up-regulation of Bax and the cleavage of caspase-9. Other mechanisms, such as p53-independent apoptosis, may also be involved in E1A-mediated cell death in CCC. Finally, treatment with E1A prolonged survival in a CCC xenograft model (P < 0.001). E1A gene therapy, because of its ability to stabilize wild-type p53, is worth exploring as a treatment modality for women with ovarian CCC, which typically expresses wild-type p53. [Mol Cancer Ther 2007;6(1):227–35]
Switched Capacitor Balancing Time Estimation and Dependency

Balancing/equalization plays a key role in lithium battery management systems. Dissipative techniques are commonly used to balance batteries for vehicles. The main advantages are the low complexity and the hardware simplicity. But the system has a worth efficiency, only works during the main charge process and takes a long time. Capacitive balancing structures are a special case of active balancing techniques which allow precise balancing, no sensing and whose process can be performed separately, or continuously during battery operation. This paper describes a way to estimate the balancing time of a switched-capacitor system, an appreciated low-cost capacitive structure. This balancing technique can offer a good trade-off between electronic complexity, cost and performance, but strongly depends on the open voltage lithium cell characteristic. A mathematical formulation of the balancing dynamic is presented the balancing time is expressed as a function of capacitors, resistances, clock frequency and cell open circuit voltage.
Internet Lottery Commerce: An Integrated View of Online Sport Lottery Adoption

Much of the future growth of the lottery business is expected to take place in online channels. This study integrates the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology with the perceived risk concept to understand the motivations behind online lottery adoption. Using the example of Taiwan's recently launched Internet Sports Lottery, findings show that performance expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, and perceived risk influence consumers' willingness to play online lottery. The moderating effects of gender, age, education, and Internet experience are analyzed. The study concludes with suggestions for the implementation of Internet commerce in the lottery business.
How Much Demand Should Be Fulfilled?

We study the inventory replenishment of a product whose demand can be manipulated by restricting the supply. This research is motivated by a novel marketing tactic employed by manufacturers of fashion and luxury items. Such a tactic combines innovative marketing with deliberate understocking in an attempt to create shortages (i.e., waitlists) that add to the allure and sense of exclusivity of a product and stimulate its demand. We model the problem as a finite-horizon, periodic-review system where demand in each period is a decreasing function of the net ending inventory in the previous period. Although the optimal structure can be complex in general, under certain conditions we are able to characterize the optimal policy as a state-dependent, monotone, base-stock policy. We compare this policy with the optimal policy for the case in which demand is independent of the net inventory. We also show that understocking is optimal in various scenarios. We then propose a novel strategy, called the inventory-withholding strategy, to further explore the wait-list effect by making customers wait even when there is inventory on hand to satisfy them. Our numerical experiments study the impact of various model parameters in combination with the wait-list effect on the optimal policy and the corresponding expected profits.
Lack of Antigenic Relationships Between Avian Pneumovirus and Four Avian Paramyxoviruses

SUMMARY. Avian paramyxoviruses (PMVs) and avian pneumovirus (APV) belong to the family Paramyxoviridae. Antigenic relationships between PMVs were shown previously, hence, this study was designed to investigate possible antigenic relationships between APV and four avian PMVs (PMV-1, PMV-2, PMV-3, and PMV-7). Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test, and virus neutralization (VN) test in chicken embryos and in Vero cells were used. The HI test was performed with the PMVs as antigens against the APV and PMVs antisera. The ELISA and VN test in chicken embryos were performed with PMVs and APV antigens and antisera. The VN test in vero cells was performed with the APV as an antigen against the PMV antisera. All the viruses were isolated in the United States or Canada. No antigenic relationships between APV and the PMVs were detected by the described tests.
Interbank Rate Fixings during the Recent Turmoil

The turmoil in global interbank markets in the second half of 2007 raises questions about the robustness of interbank rate fixings. A comparison of alternative fixings for similar interest rates confirms that they diverged to an unusual extent. Nevertheless, the design of fixing mechanisms worked as intended to moderate the influence of strategic behaviour and changing perceptions of credit quality.
Transjugular intra-hepatic portosystemic shunt for refractory variceal bleeding

Background The most dramatic complication of portal hypertension in cirrhotic patients is oesophageal variceal bleeding. Moreover, patients with bleeding unresponsive to medical and endoscopic treatment have a poor prognosis. Objective The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of early transjugular intra-hepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) in patients with refractory variceal bleeding. Patients and methods TIPS was performed for 28 patients (17 were stage Child C), successfully in 26. Variceal bleeding was controlled in all but one successfully stented patient. Results There was no mortality associated with the procedure. The two patients with a failure of TIPS insertion died of persistent bleeding in the first 48 h after failed TIPS. The 40-day mortality rate was 25%. Five patients died (one from persistent bleeding from gastric varices and four from multi-organ failure). Using multivariate analysis, the only independent factor associated with early mortality was the total bilirubin value. Fifteen surviving patients were listed for liver transplantation: four deaths occurred, eight patients were transplanted in the 6 months after TIPS and three are still waiting. Among the six patients who survived but were ineligible for transplantation, two died and four are still alive. Two episodes of early rebleeding and eight of late rebleeding occurred. Actuarial survival was 75% at one year and 52% at two years. Conclusions Early TIPS is an effective rescue therapy for controlling refractory variceal bleeding.
Cognitive adaptability to optimize online behavior personalizing digital workspaces with virtual reality

Digital organizations are now ruled by the flexibility offered by remote working environments. The availability of people to work from different places, with digital tools, empower them very often not only to perform their work better and faster, but also to reach higher levels of satisfaction in balancing work and private life. However, from an organizational perspective, there are concerns regarding the management of knowledge of those remote individuals and how they may impact the further creation of knowledge within the organization. Considering that knowledge is not only information stored on databases or written in documents, the interaction between peers is also an enormous source of knowledge that needs to be canalized. Commonly described as tacit knowledge, face-to-face communication is the main enabler of such knowledge and is one is the missing elements in remote working environments. For a geographically distributed team, a common ‘virtual space’, personalized to the cognitive needs of each individual, would represent an improvement in the digital space and could compensate for the missing face-to-face interaction. This paper proposes integrating cognitive adaptability in virtual working environments to enhance user interaction and knowledge processing, taking into consideration behavioral conditions and individuals' learning diversity. Since interaction in decentralized environments is ruled by online behaviors, the use of virtual reality and the sensorimotor experience it offers is proposed to design individual virtual spaces for interaction, which should be created as closely as possible to their ideal learning dimension. Designing individualized environments focusses on creating optimal surrounding digital spaces that precisely match the cognitive and learning conditions of individuals, so that interaction and knowledge creation are not compromised, but improved.
The Political Economy of Overvaluation

Most of the literature on political business cycles (e.g. Nordhaus, 1975; MacRae, 1977; van der Ploeg, I984) assumes that the incumbent political party attempts to secure re-election, by maximising the expected number of votes cast in its favour at the forthcoming election, and to exploit lags due to adaptive expectations. The government can then fool the electorate by judiciously depressing output in the early part of its term in office, in order to force down the expected rate of inflation, and to create a boom, without too many adverse inflationary consequences, towards election eve in order to gain the sympathy of the electorate. Such political business cycles rely on a naive electorate and cannot occur in New Classical economies with market clearing and rational expectations, because then the electorate would see through the government's vote-maximising strategy (e.g. McCallum, 1978; Minford and Peel, I982). If the private sector has rational expectations and prices or wages are sticky, this is observationally equivalent to adaptive expectations and flexible prices and wages (e.g. Sargent, 1976) but nevertheless the electorate would see through a vote-maximising strategy and thus no political business cycle would occur. In any case, it is not clear that the empirical evidence supports this view of the political business cycle (e.g. Frey, 1978). One reason for this is that it may not be realistic to assume that output can be changed instantaneously whilst inflation can, through expectations, only be influenced in a gradual fashion. In an open economy it is much easier and faster to affect real income and consumers' prices through the exchange rate than it is to have an effect on aggregate demand, output and employment. An appreciation of the exchange rate immediately cuts import prices and consumers' prices and therefore immediately boosts real income. This, combined with the reduction in the real value of imports, depresses aggregate demand, but over time standard neoclassical substitution effects ensure that the volume of exports decreases, the volume of imports decreases and therefore aggregate demand and output increase. The above argument is based on the J-curve effect in the balance of trade, for which there is ample empirical evidence (e.g. Diaz-Alejandro, 1966; Magee, 1973). This note explores the implications of the J-curve effect for the political business cycle in a small open economy, as suggested by van der Ploeg (I984) and Dornbusch (I987, Section iv). Section I sets up the model of the economy. Section II derives the development of the exchange rate, real income and output over the course of the political business cycle. Section III concludes with an interpretation and qualification of the results.
Hyphal heterogeneity in Aspergillus oryzae is the result of dynamic closure of septa by Woronin bodies

Hyphae of higher fungi are compartmentalized by septa. These septa contain a central pore that allows for inter‐compartmental and inter‐hyphal cytoplasmic streaming. The cytoplasm within the mycelium is therefore considered to be a continuous system. In this study, however, we demonstrate by laser dissection that 40% of the apical septa of exploring hyphae of Aspergillus oryzae are closed. Closure of septa correlated with the presence of a peroxisome‐derived organelle, known as Woronin body, near the septal pore. The location of Woronin bodies in the hyphae was dynamic and, as a result, plugging of the septal pore was reversible. Septal plugging was abolished in a ΔAohex1 strain that cannot form Woronin bodies. Notably, hyphal heterogeneity was also affected in the ΔAohex1 strain. Wild‐type strains of A. oryzae showed heterogeneous distribution of GFP between neighbouring hyphae at the outer part of the colony when the reporter was expressed from the promoter of the glucoamylase gene glaA or the α‐glucuronidase gene aguA. In contrast, GFP fluorescence showed a normal distribution in the case of the ΔAohex1 strain. Taken together, it is concluded that Woronin bodies maintain hyphal heterogeneity in a fungal mycelium by impeding cytoplasmic continuity.
The Relation between Firm Growth and Q with Multiple Capital Goods: Theory and Evidence from Panel Data on Japanese Firms

We derive from a model of investment with multiple capital goods a one-to-one relation between the growth rate of the capital aggregate and the stock market-based Q. We estimate the growth-Q relation using a panel of Japanese manufacturing firms taking into account the endogeneity of Q. Identification is achieved by combining the theoretical structure of the Q model and an assumed serial correlation structure of the technology shock which is the error term in the growth-Q equation. For early years of our sample. cash flow has significant explanatory power over and above Q. The significance of cash flow disappears for more recent years for the heavy industry when Japanese capital markets was liberalized. The estimated Q coefficient implies that the adjustment cost is less than a half of gross profits net of the adjustment cost.
Phase III trial comparing protracted intravenous fluorouracil infusion alone or with yttrium-90 resin microspheres radioembolization for liver-limited metastatic colorectal cancer refractory to standard chemotherapy.

PURPOSE Liver dissemination is a major cause of mortality among patients with advanced colorectal cancer. Hepatic intra-arterial injection of the beta-emitting isotope yttrium-90 ((90)Y) bound to resin microspheres (radioembolization) delivers therapeutic radiation doses to liver metastases with minimal damage to adjacent tissues. PATIENTS AND METHODS We conducted a prospective, multicenter, randomized phase III trial in patients with unresectable, chemotherapy-refractory liver-limited metastatic CRC (mCRC) comparing arm A (fluorouracil [FU] protracted intravenous infusion 300 mg/m(2) days 1 through 14 every 3 weeks) and arm B (radioembolization plus intravenous FU 225 mg/m(2) days 1 through 14 then 300 mg/m(2) days 1 through 14 every 3 weeks) until hepatic progression. The primary end point was time to liver progression (TTLP). Cross-over to radioembolization was permitted after progression in arm A. RESULTS Forty-six patients were randomly assigned and 44 were eligible for analysis (arm A, n = 23; arm B, n = 21). Median follow-up was 24.8 months. Median TTLP was 2.1 and 5.5 months in arms A and B, respectively (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.38; 95% CI, 0.20 to 0.72; P = .003). Median time to tumor progression (TTP) was 2.1 and 4.5 months, respectively (HR = 0.51; 95% CI, 0.28 to 0.94; P = .03). Grade 3 or 4 toxicities were recorded in six patients after FU monotherapy and in one patient after radioembolization plus FU treatment (P = .10). Twenty-five of 44 patients received further treatment after progression, including 10 patients in arm A who received radioembolization. Median overall survival was 7.3 and 10.0 months in arms A and B, respectively (HR = 0.92; 95% CI, 0.47 to 1.78; P = .80). CONCLUSION Radioembolization with (90)Y-resin microspheres plus FU is well tolerated and significantly improves TTLP and TTP compared with FU alone. This procedure is a valid therapeutic option for chemotherapy-refractory liver-limited mCRC.
Social Assistance: Recent Trends and Themes

There is a widespread perception that social assistance schemes are growing in importance. A previous study (Eardley et al., 1996a, 1996b) found that during the 1980s and at least until 1993 there had been a steady increase in their significance, both in terms of the volume of expenditure and in terms of the number of recipients. The trend appeared to be international and was driven by a mixture of factors: some, the ‘push’ factors, were related to the contraction and transformation of social insurance schemes which effectively transferred the burden of dependency to assistance schemes; the ‘pull’ factors were where legislation sought to extend assistance-based schemes so as to extend targeting and bring more specific behavioural objectives into social security policy and practice. Underpinning both were socioeconomic, demographic and other contextual changes which saw rising levels of unemployment, lone parenthood and reported disability: in any event the demand for social assistance was seen to have increased. The purpose of this article is to describe policy developments in the field of social assistance since 1993. Information was sought from the 24 countries which had participated in the previous study; responses were received from all countries except Denmark, Iceland, Ireland and the Netherlands. The period covered by the review is therefore May 1993 to May 1996, with occasional reference being made to more recent developments. The previous study of social assistance identified no less than seven models of social assistance, each with a distinctive set of policy objectives and/or delivery structures. The past four years have seen further developments in the size and form of social assistance schemes, but patterns of innovation and adaptation have not been equal across all countries. On the basis of information received, there are a number (the ‘consolidators’) which have not engaged in any significant policy development beyond the up-rating of benefit levels, the refinement of existing objectives and minor administrative changes (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland). However, two countries (the ‘extenders’) have introduced or substantially extended what were meagre social assistance schemes (Portugal and Turkey). The (predominantly) Englishspeaking countries (the ‘innovators’) have all introduced significant changes (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and USA).
Collective Wisdom: Some Microfoundations of Collective Wisdom

Collective wisdom refers to the ability of a population or group of individuals to make an accurate prediction of a future outcome or an accurate characterization of a current outcome. Without feedbacks, the collective will always be more accurate than it’s average member, and in some circumstances, it can be more accurate than any of its members. Yet, collective wisdom need not emerge in all situations. Crowds can be unwise as well as prescient. In this paper, we unpack what underpins and what undermines collective wisdom using a model of agents with predictive models. Our model extends traditional statistical approaches to characterizing collective wisdom. Within our model, we demonstrate how collective accuracy requires either individual sophistication/expertise or collective diversity. A lack of both characteristics necessarily leads to breakdowns in collective wisdom.
Differential Regulation of JAMM Domain Deubiquitinating Enzyme Activity within the RAP80 Complex*

BRCC36 is a JAMM (JAB1/MPN/Mov34 metalloenzyme) domain, lysine 63-ubiquitin (K63-Ub)-specific deubiquitinating enzyme (DUB) and a member of two protein complexes: the DNA damage-responsive BRCA1-RAP80 complex, and the cytoplasmic BRCC36 isopeptidase complex (BRISC). The presence of several identical constituents in both complexes suggests common regulatory mechanisms and potential competition between K63-Ub-related signaling in cytoplasmic and nuclear compartments. Surprisingly, we discover that BRCC36 DUB activity requires different interactions within the context of each complex. Abraxas and BRCC45 were essential for BRCC36 DUB activity within the RAP80 complex, whereas KIAA0157/Abro was the only interaction required for DUB activity within the BRISC. Poh1 also required protein interactions for activity, suggesting a common regulatory mechanism for JAMM domain DUBs. Finally, BRISC deficiency enhanced formation of the BRCA1-RAP80 complex in vivo, increasing BRCA1 levels at DNA double strand breaks. These findings reveal that JAMM domain DUB activity and K63-Ub levels are regulated by multiple mechanisms within the cell.
Partial Pulpotomy in Immature Permanent Molars After Carious Exposures Using Different Hemorrhage Control and Capping Materials.

PURPOSE This study compared the outcome of partial pulpotomies with mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA) or calcium hydroxide (CH) following hemorrhage control with 2.5 percent sodium hypochlorite (SH) or 0.9 percent sterile saline (SS) solutions in cariously exposed immature permanent molars. METHODS Following removal of two to three mm of the pulp at the exposure site, 80 Class I cavities were randomly allocated to four groups according to the hemorrhage control agent and pulp-capping material used: (1) group one-SH plus MTA; (2) group two-SS plus MTA; (3) group three-SH plus CH; (4) group four-SS plus CH. Glass ionomer cement was applied over the pulp-capping material, and the teeth were later restored with composite resin. The patients were recalled at six, 12, 18, and 24 months. RESULTS After 24 months, simultaneous radiographic and clinical success rates were 94.4 percent, 100 percent, 95 percent, and 100 percent for groups one to four, respectively (P>.05). No significant correlation was found between marginal integrity scores of restorations and partial pulpotomy failure (P>.05). CONCLUSIONS Partial pulpotomy, performed with MTA or CH used as the pulp-capping material following hemostasis with SH or SS solutions, provided comparable and favorable outcomes in carious pulp exposures of immature permanent teeth.