Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Heme Ligand Binding Properties and Intradimer Interactions in the Full-length Sensor Protein Dos from Escherichia coli and Its Isolated Heme Domain*

Dos from Escherichia coli is a bacterial gas sensor protein comprising a heme-containing gas sensor domain and a phosphodiesterase catalytic domain. Using a combination of static light scattering and gel filtration experiments, we established that, as are many other sensor proteins, the full-length protein is dimeric. The full-length dimer (association constant <10 nm) is more stable than the dimeric heme domain (association constant ∼1 μm), and the dimer interface presumably includes both sensor and catalytic domains. Ultrafast spectroscopic studies showed little influence of the catalytic domain on kinetic processes in the direct vicinity of the heme. By contrast, the properties of ligand (CO and O2) binding to the heme in the sensor domain, occurring on a microsecond to second time scale, were found to be influenced by (i) the presence of the catalytic domain, (ii) the dimerization state, and in dimers, (iii) the ligation state of the other subunit. These results imply allosteric interactions within dimers. Steady-state titrations demonstrated marked cooperativity in oxygen binding to both the full-length protein and the isolated heme domain, a feature not reported to date for any dimeric sensor protein. Analysis of a variety of time-resolved experiments showed that Met-95 plays a major role in the intradimer interactions. The intrinsic binding and dissociation rates of Met-95 to the heme were modulated ∼10-fold by intradimer and sensor-catalytic domain interactions. Dimerization effects were also observed for cyanide binding to the ferric heme domains, suggesting a similar role for Met-95 in ferric proteins.
The Power of Transnational Private Governance: Financialization and the IASB

This investigation of accounting standard setting as a case of business power in global governance links together three facets of power. First we examine the discursive power of international accounting standards in the ongoing process of financialization, which we break into two dynamics centered on profit and control. We argue that the selection of accounting paradigms does not concern measurement accuracy but is rather a choice of perspectives between finance and production when presenting economic reality as numbers. Drawing on evidence from the contestation between Rhenish capitalism and the financial perspective, we then explain why, despite the overwhelming structural power of finance, instrumental power exercised in political lobbying over accounting standards can still have considerable success.
An exploratory use of Web content analysis to understand cruise tourism services.

Research within the cruise industry now has the ability to utilize Web-based content analysis. This paper provides an example of a methodology that explores patterns of co-creation of value on board cruise ships using holiday reviews retrieved through Web content mining from CruiseCritic.com. The aim is to add to the field of co-creation and cruise tourism by providing an approach to exploratory Web-based data collection. With the use of a data-driven approach to knowledge discovery, this paper provides a means to achieve a deeper understanding of guest-to-guest and guest-to-staff interactions on board cruise ships. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Explaining Eastern Germany's Wage Gap: The Impact of Structural Change

Since Eastern Germany's conversion to a market economy wages have remained considerably below the West German wage level. This article looks at the role of establishment-specific factors—such as sectoral affiliation and size of the labour force—in this process. A non-parametric decomposition that has played a prominent role in the gender wage gap literature is applied to breakdown the East–West wage gap into its constituent components. Using establishment data from German employment statistics, the article demonstrates that the catching-up process of Eastern Germany's wage level is hindered by the shift in its economic structure towards lower-paying types of companies, which has caused the lagging behind in the adjustment of wages.
Parisian exchange options

The option to exchange one asset for another is one of the oldest and one of the most popular exotic options. In the present article, we extend the existing literature on options to Parisian exchange options, i.e. the option to exchange one asset for the other contingent on the occurrence of the Parisian time. Thus, these options are a special kind of barrier option which is knocked out or knocked in only if the value of the first asset is worth more than the other for a certain period of time, i.e. the ratio of the assets must be above or below one (or, in general, a given barrier) for a certain period of time. We derive closed-form solutions in terms of Laplace transforms for these options, introduce new options which are automatically exercised at the Parisian time, conduct some illustrative numerical analyses and give a number of examples from structured equity products, corporate finance, M&A, risk arbitrage and life insurance where the application of Parisian exchange options can be very useful.
Canadian domestic travel behaviour: A market segmentation study of rural shoppers

Rural shopping is emerging as a tourism market that is under-researched and offers potential for the economic development of rural regions. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the role and importance of the domestic rural shopping market in Canada as a ‘niche’ market in rural tourism, and to provide a description of the characteristics of rural shoppers. Secondary data analysis of the domestic Canadian Travel Survey (1998-2001) reveals that there are many rural visitors who also participate in shopping, and that rural shoppers display different characteristics from average Canadian domestic travellers. Market segmentation using cluster analysis identifies five activity-based groups that differ on the basis of demographics and trip characteristics.
Simulating the Impact of Future Land Use and Climate Change on Soil Erosion and Deposition in the Mae Nam Nan Sub-Catchment, Thailand

This paper evaluates the possible impacts of climate change and land use change and its combined effects on soil loss and net soil loss (erosion and deposition) in the Mae Nam Nan sub-catchment, Thailand. Future climate from two general circulation models (GCMs) and a regional circulation model (RCM) consisting of HadCM3, NCAR CSSM3 and PRECIS RCM ware downscaled using a delta change approach. Cellular Automata/Markov (CA_Markov) model was used to characterize future land use. Soil loss modeling using Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) and sedimentation modeling in Idrisi software were employed to estimate soil loss and net soil loss under direct impact (climate change), indirect impact (land use change) and full range of impact (climate and land use change) to generate results at a 10 year interval between 2020 and 2040. Results indicate that soil erosion and deposition increase or decrease, depending on which climate and land use scenarios are considered. The potential for climate change to increase soil loss rate, soil erosion and deposition in future periods was established, whereas considerable decreases in erosion are projected when land use is increased from baseline periods. The combined climate and land use change analysis revealed that land use planning could be adopted to mitigate soil erosion and deposition in the future, in conjunction with the projected direct impact of climate change.
Storage class memory: Technology, systems and applications

Storage Class Memory (SCM) is the term used to describe a new class of solid-state, nonvolatile memory technologies. There are several (≥10) such technologies currently under active research and development that are vying to become the SCM of choice. As a group, their performance is nearer memory than storage while their cost is nearer storage than memory. In the systems designer's eye, these performance and cost characteristics blur the historic distinction between memory and storage. Exploiting SCM will require significant changes in the design of memory and storage systems. These changes at the system level will force or enable changes at the application level as well as opening up new application opportunities. In this talk we will discuss several of today's leading SCM technologies, discuss their potential impact on the design of memory and storage systems, consider the changes that might be needed to existing applications and explore some of the potential opportunities for future applications.
The relative contribution of conditional mean and volatility in bivariate returns to international stock market indices

We compare the relative contribution of conditional mean and conditional volatility terms in vector autoregression–exponential generalized autoregression conditional heteroskedasticity models of bivariate returns to international stock indices. Conditional mean terms are relatively unimportant for bivariate returns to country pairs that trade synchronously such as Australia/Japan, where they account for only 8% of the increase in log-likelihood over an unconditional model, on average. They are more important in nonsynchronous domestic/world-ex-domestic series such as Japan/world-ex-Japan, where they account for 24% of the increase in log-likelihood over an unconditional model, on average. Despite their increased prominence in the domestic/world-ex-domestic series, conditional mean terms detract from residual behaviours in these series. They also detract from some out-of-sample return and volatility predictions in both synchronous and nonsynchronous series.
Copula-HDP-HMM: Non-parametric Modeling of Temporal Multivariate Data for I/O Efficient Bulk Cache Preloading

Caching is an important determinant of storage system performance. Bulk cache preloading is the process of preloading large batches of relevant data into cache, minutes or hours in advance of actual requests by the application. We address bulk preloading by analyzing high-level spatio-temporal motifs from raw and noisy I/O traces by aggregating the trace into a temporal sequence of correlated count vectors. Such temporal multivariate data from trace aggregation arise from a diverse set of workloads leading to diverse data distributions with complex spatio-temporal dependencies. Motivated by this, we propose the Copula-HDPHMM, a new Bayesian non-parametric modeling technique based on Gaussian Copula, suitable for temporal multivariate data with arbitrary marginals, avoiding limiting assumptions on the marginal distributions. We are not aware of prior work on copula based extensions of Bayesian non-parametric modeling algorithms for discrete data. Inference with copulas is hard when data is not continuous. We propose a semi-parametric inference technique based on extended rank likelihood that circumvents specifying marginals, making our inference suitable for count data and even data with a combination of discrete and continuous marginals, enabling the use of Bayesian non-parametric modeling, for several data types, without assumptions on marginals. Finally, we propose HULK , a strategy for I/O efficient bulk cache preloading using our Copula-HDPHMM model to leverage high-level spatio-temporal motifs in Block I/O traces. In experiments on benchmark traces, we show near perfect hitrate of 0.95 using HULK, a tremendous improvement over baseline using Multivariate Poisson, with only a fourth of I/O overhead.
How Well Can International Stock Liquidity Be Estimated

A growing literature uses percent-cost or cost-per-volume liquidity proxies constructed from daily stock data to conduct research in international asset pricing, international corporate finance, and international market microstructure. Relatively little is known about how well these proxies are related to transactions costs in the global setting. We compare these proxies to actual transaction costs using the microstructure data in the Thomson Reuters Tick History dataset by the Securities Industry Research Centre of Asia-Pacific. Our sample contains 8.1 billion trades and 12.2 billion quotes representing 16,096 firms on 41 exchanges around the world from 1996 to 2007. We evaluate nine percent-cost proxies (including two new ones) relative to four percent-cost benchmarks: percent effective spread, percent quoted spread, percent realized spread, and percent price impact. We examine twelve cost-per-volume proxies (including two new ones) relative to a cost-per-volume benchmark: the slope of the price function “lambda. ” We test three dimensions: (1) higher average cross-sectional correlation with the benchmarks, (2) higher portfolio correlation with the benchmarks, or (3) lower prediction error relative to the benchmarks. We find that a new measure, FHT, is the best proxy for percent effective spread, percent quoted spread, and percent realized spread. We find that FHT is the best proxy for percent price impact, but is only moderately-well correlated with it and does not capture the correct scale. We find that LOT Mixed Impact, Zeros Impact, and Zeros2 Impact are the best proxies for lambda, but they are only moderately-well correlated with it and do not capture the correct scale.
W. H. Hutt (1899–1988): Free Markets and Social Justice

W.H. Hutt reaffirmed the principles of classical economics and classical liberalism and, by applying them to urgent issues he observed in the world around him, he demonstrated the contemporary relevance of freedom and competitive institutions. A wide-ranging critique of Keynes was founded upon a classical analysis of the labour market, while his trenchant opposition to apartheid advanced along economic and political paths. Hutt questioned the justice of the accumulation of wealth from the exploitation of monopoly power over generations. In all of these respects there are affinities between Hutt's thought and that of ‘Bleeding Heart Libertarians’.
Two CD95 (APO‐1/Fas) signaling pathways

We have identified two cell types, each using almost exclusively one of two different CD95 (APO‐1/Fas) signaling pathways. In type I cells, caspase‐8 was activated within seconds and caspase‐3 within 30 min of receptor engagement, whereas in type II cells cleavage of both caspases was delayed for ∼60 min. However, both type I and type II cells showed similar kinetics of CD95‐mediated apoptosis and loss of mitochondrial transmembrane potential (ΔΨm). Upon CD95 triggering, all mitochondrial apoptogenic activities were blocked by Bcl‐2 or Bcl‐xL overexpression in both cell types. However, in type II but not type I cells, overexpression of Bcl‐2 or Bcl‐xL blocked caspase‐8 and caspase‐3 activation as well as apoptosis. In type I cells, induction of apoptosis was accompanied by activation of large amounts of caspase‐8 by the death‐inducing signaling complex (DISC), whereas in type II cells DISC formation was strongly reduced and activation of caspase‐8 and caspase‐3 occurred following the loss of ΔΨm. Overexpression of caspase‐3 in the caspase‐3‐negative cell line MCF7‐Fas, normally resistant to CD95‐mediated apoptosis by overexpression of Bcl‐xL, converted these cells into true type I cells in which apoptosis was no longer inhibited by Bcl‐xL. In summary, in the presence of caspase‐3 the amount of active caspase‐8 generated at the DISC determines whether a mitochondria‐independent apoptosis pathway is used (type I cells) or not (type II cells).
Options Arbitrage in Imperfect Markets

Option valuation models are based on an arbitrage strategy--hedging the option against the underlying asset and rebalancing continuously until expiration--that is only possible in a frictionless market. This paper simulates the impact of market imperfections and other problems with the "standard" arbitrage trade, including uncertain volatility, transaction costs, indivisibilities, and rebalancing only at discrete intervals. The author finds that, in an actual market such as that for stock index options, the standard arbitrage is exposed to such large risk and transactions costs that it can only establish very wide bounds on equilibrium options prices. This has important implications for price determination in options markets, as well as for testing of valuation models. Copyright 1989 by American Finance Association.
Physical activity and rapid decline in kidney function among older adults.

BACKGROUND Habitual physical activity (PA) has both physiologic and metabolic effects that may moderate the risk of kidney function decline. We tested the hypothesis that higher levels of PA are associated with a lower risk of kidney function decline using longitudinal data from a large cohort of older adults. METHODS We studied 4011 ambulatory participants aged 65 or older from the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) who completed at least 2 measurements of kidney function over 7 years. We calculated a PA score (range, 2-8) by summing kilocalories expended per week (ordinal score of 1-5 from quintiles of kilocalories per week) and walking pace (ordinal score for categories of <2, 2-3, and >3 mph). Rapid decline in kidney function decline (RDKF) was defined by loss of more than 3.0 mL/min/1.73 m(2) per year in glomerular filtration rate, which we estimated by using longitudinal measurements of cystatin C levels. RESULTS A total of 958 participants had RDKF (23.9%; 4.1 events per 100 person-years). The estimated risk of RDKF was 16% in the highest PA group (score of 8) and 30% in the lowest PA group (score of 2). After multivariate adjustment, we found that the 2 highest PA groups (scores of 7-8) were associated with a 28% lower risk of RDKF (95% confidence interval, 21%-41% lower risk) than the 2 lowest PA groups (score of 2-3). Greater kilocalories of leisure-time PA and walking pace were also each associated with a lower incidence of RDKF. CONCLUSION Higher levels of PA are associated with a lower risk of RDKF among older adults.
Property Regime or Development Policy? Explaining Growth in the U.S. Pacific Groundfish Fishery

Researchers often blame problems in fisheries on the property regime under which a fishery is practiced. Depending on their perspective, researchers locate the cause of problems in either common property or open access regimes. However, because these approaches rely on the assumption of the “economically rational individual,” they obfuscate the specific cultural, political, and economic practices that shape resource use. Analysis of the U.S. Pacific groundfish fishery shows that growth and subsequent problems in this fishery are the result of a state-led fisheries development program implemented through a series of national, regional, and local policies designed to extend sovereign control to include ocean territory. These policies both created a climate of fisheries development and provided the means by which the fishery could grow. This analysis highlights the need to examine historic and geographic specificity to explain resource use, rather than relying upon generalized models that posit a deterministic relationship between property regimes and socioenvironmental outcomes.
Clinical and biochemical observations during treatment of depression with electroacupuncture: a pilot study

Six patients suffering from major depression were treated with electroacupuncture. During 4 weeks of treatment, the total CPRS‐S‐A score decreased from 23.8 to 13.4 (p=0.0095). A decrease of neuropeptide Y (NPY) in plasma during the first 2 weeks of treatment was noted in five of the patients, all being women (p=0.0431). The decrease was negatively correlated with age (rs=−0.29; p=0.046). The results are in line with a putative antidepressive effect of electroacupuncture, along with an influence on NPY in plasma. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Angiogenesis: new aspects relating to its initiation and control

Angiogenesis, the formation of new microvessels from parent microvessels, involves remodeling the basement membrane and interstitial extracellular matrix (ECM) using degrading proteases produced by the endothelial cells (ECs) and other adjacent cells, and the synthesis of ECM molecules by these cells. Degraded ECM releases previously bound heparin‐binding cytokines (and growth factors) which are able to act as ligands to high‐affinity receptors on various target cells, including ECs. The EC carries receptors for a number of cytokines which are produced by neighboring cells or released from the ECM and which can either induce or suppress the angiogenic phenotype of the EC. ECs are able to synthesize and secrete cytokines with auto‐ and paracrine effects. Angiogenesis, which virtually never occurs physiologically in adult tissues (except in the ovary, the endometrium and the placenta), is essential in wound healing and inflammation. Angiogenesis is, in fact, strictly controlled by a redundancy of pro‐ and antiangiogenic paracrine peptide molecules, some of which have recently been described. The expression and synthesis of two distinct anti‐angiogenic factors is, for example, controlled by the p53 tumor suppressor gene. In certain hypoxic conditions, chronic inflammatory diseases and syndromes, angiogenesis is of pathogenic and prognostic significance. Angiogenesis is, moreover, essential for the growth and metastatic spread of solid tumors. This indicates the potential for developing new therapeutic strategies not only for tumors but also in diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, liver cirrhosis and diabetic retinopathy. Moreover, the therapeutic induction of angiogenesis in ischemic tissues using recombinant cytokines is also promising for clinical application. In fact, the first successful human gene therapy for stimulating angiogenesis has recently been reported.
Politics, Economics and Tourism Development in Egypt: insights into the sectoral transformations of a neo-patrimonial rentier state

Abstract This article challenges claims that liberalising state-regulated markets in developing countries may induce lasting economic development. An analysis of the rise of tourism in Egypt during the past three decades suggests that the effects of liberalisation and structural adjustment are constrained by the neo-patrimonial character of the Egyptian political system. Since the decline of oil-rent revenues during the 1980s tourism development has been the optimal strategy to compensate for the resulting fiscal losses. Increasing tourism revenues have helped in coping with macroeconomic imbalances and in avoiding more costly adjustment of traditional economic sectors. Additionally they provided the private elite with opportunities to generate large profits. Therefore sectoral transformations resulting from economic liberalisation in neo-patrimonial rentier states should be described as a process which has led to the diversification of external rent revenues, rather than to a general downsizing of the rentier character of the economy.