Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neutral theory in macroecology and population genetics

Current neutral theory in macroecology has many parallels with neutral theory in population genetics, but it also has many distinct features that arise because it focuses mainly on questions at the community level rather than at the population level. Here we highlight the similarities and differences between these two bodies of theories from the aspects of the operational units, definitions of neutrality, basic parameters, driving forces, spatial structure and community assembly rules. Compared with neutral theory in population genetics, whose development spans more than 40 years, neutral theory in ecology, which is only a few years old, is still immature and under-developed. There are many opportunities for major theoretical contributions, some of which can be adopted directly from population genetics, while others will require new theoretical work. We critically discuss these opportunities and theoretical challenges in neutral macroecology, particularly in regard to effective community size, ecological drift, community differentiation and ecological dominance.
Ambient vapor samples activate the Nrf2‐ARE pathway in human bronchial epithelial BEAS‐2B cells

Ambient air pollutants have been reported to induce oxidative stress based inflammatory responses in humans and experimental animals. However, most of these reports describe the actions of the particulate phase of ambient and exhaust samples. We describe here results of studies investigating the actions of the vapor phase of ambient air samples collected in the midtown area of Los Angeles on human bronchial epithelial BEAS‐2B cells using DNA microarray analysis. Among 26 genes whose expression increased fourfold or more, four genes were associated with detoxifying genes regulated by the transcription factor Nrf2. Consistent with these results, the vapor samples activate the Nrf2‐ARE pathway, resulting in up‐regulation of heme oxygenase‐1 (HO‐1), glutamate cysteine ligase modifier subunit, and cystine transporter (xCT) mRNA and proteins. No appreciable increases in pro‐inflammatory genes were observed. These results suggest that ambient vapor samples activate the Nrf2‐ARE pathway but not an inflammatory response. Also, treatment of the vapor samples with glutathione resulted in reduction in the Nrf2 activation and HO‐1 induction, suggesting that electrophiles in vapor samples contribute to this Nrf2‐dependent antioxidant or adaptive response. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Environ Toxicol 29: 1292–1300, 2014.
Demand and Supply Factors in the Determination of NIE Exports: A Reply

In their comment on Muscatelli, Srinivasan and Vines (MSV) (I992), Athukorala and Riedel challenge our conclusions regarding the estimated longrun elasticities of export demand for Hong Kong, and our suggestion that estimating a system of export demand and supply could provide a solution to the 'normalisation problem'. Unfortunately, by focusing only on a subset of the issues raised by MSV, Athukorala and Riedel tend to ignore some of the key econometric evidence against their preferred 'small country assumption', and their chosen normalisation (price-dependent export demand). There are three key pieces of evidence which tend to point against the small country assumption. ' First, let us turn to the normalisation issue. As Athukorala and Riedel note, least-squares methods such as the Phillips-Hansen procedure will not yield estimates of cointegrating vectors which are independent of normalisation, and that is why MSV point out that the Phillips-Hansen procedure may only alleviate not 'solve' the 'normalisation' problem. Ideally, when estimating a simultaneous cointegrated model (SCM) one should attempt to test and impose identifying restrictions on the H matrix in a Johansen-type multi-variate VAR framework:
Physical Interaction between Specific E2 and Hect E3 Enzymes Determines Functional Cooperativity*

The cellular protein E6AP functions as an E3 ubiquitin protein ligase in the E6-dependent ubiquitination of p53. E6AP is a member of a family of functionally related E3 proteins that share a conserved carboxyl-terminal region called the Hect domain. Although several different E2 ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes have been shown to function with E6AP in the E6-dependent ubiquitination of p53 in vitro, the E2s that cooperate with E6AP in the ubiquitination of its normal substrates are presently unknown. Moreover, the basis of functional cooperativity between specific E2 and Hect E3 proteins has not yet been determined. Here we report the cloning of a new human E2, designated UbcH8, that was identified in a two-hybrid screen through specific interaction with E6AP. We demonstrate that UbcH7, an E2 closely related to UbcH8, can also bind to E6AP. The region of E6AP involved in complex formation with UbcH8 and UbcH7 was mapped to its Hect domain. Furthermore, we show that UbcH5 and UbcH6, two highly homologous E2s that were deficient for interaction with E6AP, could associate efficiently with another Hect-E3 protein, RSP5. Finally, only the E6AP-interacting E2s could function in conjunction with E6AP in the ubiquitination of an E6 independent substrate of E6AP, whereas the noninteracting E2s could not. Taken together, these studies demonstrate for the first time complex formation between specific human E2s and the Hect domain family of E3 proteins and suggest that selective physical interaction between E2 and E3 enzymes forms the basis of specificity for functionally distinct E2:E3 combinations.
In search of a Chinese internationalization theory: A study of 12 automobile manufacturers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to exhibit the influencing factors on and the process of internationalization with regard to Chinese automobile companies.Design/methodology/approach – The author adopts an explorative approach to investigate the 12 major Chinese automobile manufacturers in terms of sales for the year 2010. Concentrating on the automobile industry in China, the author provides context and comparability.Findings – The findings show that the internationalization of Chinese automobile companies cannot be explained by one theoretical model only and challenge previous internationalization research. Nevertheless, in retrospect, some patterns can be seen. Until the year 2000, technology was absorbed through domestic joint ventures with Western manufacturers. Up to 2010, internationalization involving exports may be viewed as having been a “test” phase, becoming a strategic goal defined by the Chinese government. Different internationalization attributes are aggregated into a comprehensive r.
A Stance On Emulation And Testbeds, And A Survey Of Network Emulators And Testbeds

Emulations and testbeds are popular tools in networking research. However, what differentiates testbeds from emulations is not terminologically clear. In this article, we first discuss the terms emulation and testbed, and present the reflexivity principle for identifying testbeds. We then present a survey of forty two network emulators and testbeds reported in the literature, categorizing them according to the approaches used. Another eighteen that can be added to this survey as future work are also identified.
The effect of China's RMB exchange rate movement on its agricultural export: A case study of export to Japan

Purpose – The paper aims to examine the relationship between changes and volatility of China's Renminbi (RMB) exchange rates and its agricultural export. Design/methodology/approach – A GARCH(1, 1) model is specified to measure the exchange rate volatility and autoregressive distributed lag regression with structural break dummy variables is estimated based on the results of unit root test with structural break. Findings – The export supply model reveals that the net trade effect of RMB exchange rate movements relies on the comparison of exchange rate level change (appreciation or depreciation) effect and exchange rate risk effect. The empirical examination results, taking China's agricultural exports to Japan as a case, show RMB depreciation against yen will promote export growth while appreciation hinder export, and exchange rate volatility positively stimulates agricultural exports to Japan. However, the effect of exchange rate volatility on the export is much smaller than that of exchange rate level, which leads to a negative net effect to the export. Originality/value – The constructed model and applied methodology contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between changes and volatility of China's RMB exchange rates and its agricultural export.
Validity and Reliability of a New Test of Planned Agility in Elite Taekwondo Athletes

Abstract Chaabene, H, Negra, Y, Capranica, L, Bouguezzi, R, Hachana, Y, Rouahi, MA, and Mkaouer, B. Validity and reliability of a new test of planned agility in elite taekwondo athletes. J Strength Cond Res 32(9): 2542–2547, 2018—This study aimed to examine the validity, reliability, and sensitivity of a new test of planned agility in elite taekwondo athletes and to establish its relationship with sprint-time, jumping ability, and dynamic balance. Twenty-seven (20 males and 7 females) taekwondo athletes participated in this study. They performed taekwondo-specific agility test (TSAT) in 2 occasions (i.e., test-retest). In addition, they performed jumping ability (i.e., squat jump, countermovement jump, standing long jump, and 3-hop jump), sprint-time (5- and 20-m dash), and dynamic balance (i.e., Y-test) tests along with a planned agility test (i.e., T-test). To establish TSAT's construct validity, 2 subgroups were identified based on their international and national taekwondo results: top elite (9 males and 2 females) and elite (11 males and 2 females). Taekwondo-specific agility test showed high relative and absolute reliability as well as a good ability to detect small and meaningful performance change. Top-elite athletes showed greater (p < 0.001) TSAT performances (4.5 ± 0.4 seconds) compared with their elite (5.3 ± 0.4 seconds) counterparts. Receiving operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that TSAT was able to discriminate athletes of different competitive level as revealed by an area under the ROC curve of 0.94 (95% confidence interval: 0.76–0.99). Taekwondo-specific agility test demonstrated significant association with the T-test (r = 0.71; shared variance = 50%), which is considered as a gold-standard planned agility test. In addition, results showed moderate-to-large associations between TSAT and jumping ability, sprint-time, and dynamic balance tests. The TSAT might be considered as a valid and reliable test to evaluate specific agility of taekwondo athletes.
Complete nucleotide sequence of an Amerindian human T-cell lymphotropic virus type II (HTLV-II) isolate: identification of a variant HTLV-II subtype b from a Guaymi Indian

The complete nucleotide sequence of a human T-cell lymphotropic virus type II (HTLV-II) isolate from a Panamanian Guaymi Indian was determined and analyzed. When this new viral isolate (HTLV-IIG12) was compared with prototypic HTLV-IIMoT, the overall nucleotide sequence similarity was 95.4%, while the predicted amino acid sequence similarity was 97.5%. Although the overall percentage of nucleotide and amino acid identity with prototypic HTLV-IIMoT (subtype a) was high, HTLV-IIG12 displayed several distinctive features that defined it as an HTLV-II subtype b. However, there were several characteristics unique to this isolate, which included a cluster of nucleotide substitutions in the pre-gag region and changes in restriction enzyme sites within the pre-gag region and the gag, pol, env, and pX genes. In addition, two nucleotide changes in the C terminus of the Tax protein coding sequence inserted an Arg residue for a stop codon and appeared to result in a larger tax gene product in HTLV-IIG12. Although the HTLV-IIG12 isolate appears to be a variant of the prototypic HTLV-IIb, this information represents the first complete nucleotide sequence of any HTLV-II subtype b. These data will allow further studies on the evolutionary relationships between the HTLV-II subtypes and between HTLV-I and HTLV-II.
Obesity and risk of venous thromboembolism among postmenopausal women: differential impact of hormone therapy by route of estrogen administration. The ESTHER Study

Summary. Background: Oral estrogen use and elevated body mass index (BMI) increase the risk of venous thromboembolism (VTE). Recent data suggest that transdermal estrogen might be safe with respect to thrombotic risk. However, the impact of transdermal estrogen on the association between overweight (25 kg m−2 < BMI ≤ 30 kg m−2) or obesity (BMI >30 kg m−2) and VTE risk has not been investigated. Methods: We carried a multicenter case–control study of VTE among postmenopausal women aged 45–70 years, between 1999 and 2005, in France. Case population consisted of women with a first documented idiopathic VTE. We recruited 191 hospital cases matched with 416 hospital controls and 62 outpatient cases matched with 181 community controls. Results: The odds ratio (OR) for VTE was 2.5 [95% confidence interval (CI):1.7–3.7] for overweight and 3.9 (95% CI: 2.2–6.9) for obesity. Oral, not transdermal, estrogen was associated with an increased VTE risk (OR = 4.5; 95% CI: 2.6–7.7 and OR = 1.1; 95% CI: 0.7–1.7, respectively). Compared with non‐users with normal weight, the combination of oral estrogen use and overweight or obesity further enhanced VTE risk (OR = 10.2; 95% CI: 3.5–30.2 and OR = 20.6; 95% CI: 4.8–88.1, respectively). However, transdermal users with increased BMI had similar risk as non‐users with increased BMI (OR = 2.9; 95% CI: 1.5–5.8 and OR = 2.7; 95% CI: 1.7–4.5 respectively for overweight; OR = 5.4; 95% CI: 2.1–14.1 and OR = 4.0; 95% CI: 2.1–7.8 respectively for obesity). Conclusions: In contrast to oral estrogen, transdermal estrogen does not confer an additional risk of idiopathic VTE in women with increased BMI. The safety of transdermal estrogen on thrombotic risk has to be confirmed.
The Strategy of Manipulating Joint Decision-Making

We study a model of strategic persuasion based on the theory of cheap talk, in which a better-informed agent manipulates two decision-makers’ joint decision on alternative proposals. With the heterogeneity of two decision-makers’ value of the outside option, only the decision-maker with the better outside option is critical in determining whether communication is truthful, overselling, or ineffective.
Oil price shocks and producer prices in Taiwan: an application of non-linear error-correction models

This study estimated the short-term and long-term pass-through effects of oil prices on inflation in Taiwan from 1981M1-2011M5, employing the producer price general index and various basic sub-indices for evaluation. The empirical results show that oil prices have long-term and short-term pass-through effects on Taiwan’s producer price indices. Moreover, producer prices have significant non-linear error-correction relationships with the oil price, output and wages, suggesting asymmetric and time-variant properties of error correction. When the deviation of price in the equilibrium is greater, the error-correction adjustment will be faster. Our findings could therefore enable the monetary authorities and manufacturers to formulate a more effective policy from the oil price shocks.
Estimating the Intelligibility of Speakers with Dysarthria

Many speakers with dysarthria have reduced intelligibility[,] and improving intelligibility is often a primary intervention objective. Consequently, measurement of intelligibility provides important information that is useful for clinical decision-making. The present study compared two different measures of intelligibility obtained in audio-only and audio-visual modalities for 4 different speakers with dysarthria (2 with mild-moderate dysarthria; 2 with severe dysarthria) secondary to cerebral palsy. A total of 80 college-aged listeners provided word-by-word transcriptions and made percent estimates of intelligibility which served as dependent variables. Group results showed that transcription measures were higher than percent estimates of intelligibility overall. There was also an interaction between speakers and measures of intelligibility, indicating that the difference between transcription scores and percent estimates varied among individual speakers. Results revealed a significant main effect for presentation modality, with the audio-visual modality having slightly higher scores than the audio-only modality; however, presentation modality did not interact with speakers or with measures of intelligibility. Results suggest that standard clinical measurement of intelligibility using orthographic transcription may be more consistent than the use of more subjective percent estimates.
A GIS–Environmental Justice Analysis of Particulate Air Pollution in Hamilton, Canada

The authors address two research questions: (1) Are populations with lower socioeconomic status, compared with people of higher socioeconomic status, more likely to be exposed to higher levels of particulate air pollution in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada? (2) How sensitive is the association between levels of particulate air pollution and socioeconomic status to specification of exposure estimates or statistical models? Total suspended particulate (TSP) data from the twenty-three monitoring stations in Hamilton (1985–94) were interpolated with a universal kriging procedure to develop an estimate of likely pollution values across the city based on annual geometric means and extreme events. Comparing the highest with the lowest exposure zones, the interpolated surfaces showed more than a twofold increase in TSP concentrations and more than a twentyfold difference in the probability of exposure to extreme events. Exposure estimates were related to socioeconomic and demographic data from census tract areas by using ordinary least squares and simultaneous autoregressive (SAR) models. Control for spatial autocorrelation in the SAR models allowed for tests of how robust specific socioeconomic variables were for predicting pollution exposure. Dwelling values were significantly and negatively associated with pollution exposure, a result robust to the method of statistical analysis. Low income and unemployment were also significant predictors of exposure, although results varied depending on the method of analysis. Relatively minor changes in the statistical models altered the significant variables. This result emphasizes the value of geographical information systems (GIS) and spatial statistical techniques in modelling exposure. The result also shows the importance of taking spatial autocorrelation into account in future justice – health studies.
Crossing the barrier: Published, JLR Papers in Press, March 1, 2005. DOI 10.1194/jlr.M500024-JLR200 net flux of 27-hydroxycholesterol into the human brain

Side chain oxidized oxysterols have a unique ability to traverse lipophilic membranes. We tested the hypothesis that there is a net flux of 27-hydroxycholesterol from the circulation into the brain using plasma samples collected from the internal jugular vein and an artery of healthy male volunteers. Two independent studies were performed, one in which total levels of 27-hydroxycholesterol were measured and one in which the free fraction of 27-hydroxycholesterol was measured. In the majority of subjects studied, the level of 27-hydroxycholesterol was higher in the artery than in the vein, and uptake from the circulation was calculated to be about 5 mg/24 h. The distribution of 27-hydroxycholesterol in human brain was found to be consistent with an extracerebral origin, with a concentration gradient from the white to the gray matter
A170P mutation in SHOX gene in a patient not presenting with Madelung deformity

Idiopathic short stature is a multifactorial disease caused by defects in several genes. Among them, short stature homeobox-containing gene (SHOX) mutations have an incidence of 2%–15% within the idiopathic short population. The authors report a patient with moderate intellectual disability, short stature and no other radiological traits referred for subtelomeric screening. MLPA and sequencing results showed a heterozygous mutation in SHOX gene (A170P). This mutation has been described to fully cosegregate with Madelung deformity in patients affected with Léri–Weill dyschondrosteosis and Langer mesomelic dysplasia. The authors report the first case of idiopathic short stature due to the A170P mutation in a patient without any radiological trait. The A170P mutation is the most prevalent mutation in the Spanish gypsy population affected with short stature disorders. The authors strongly recommend SHOX screening for deletions, duplications and point mutations in patients affected with short stature although they do not present any radiological traits.
Design wizards and visual programming environments for generators

Domain-specific generators will increasingly rely on graphical specification languages-applets-for declarative specifications of target applications. Applets will provide front-ends to generators and related tools to produce customized code on demand. Critical to the success of this approach will be domain-specific design wizards, tools that guide users in their selection of components for constructing particular applications. In this paper, we present the P3 ContainerStore applet, its generator and design wizard.
The Sole Effects Doctrine, Police Powers and Indirect Expropriation under International Law

Indirect expropriation claims under international law are increasingly being seen as a threat to States' abilities to control property within their territory. The inconsistent manner in which these claims are being dealt with means that uncertainty prevails in this area for investors and States alike. This article considers the two main theories that have been proposed to resolve these problems: the sole effects doctrine and the police powers doctrine. It is argued that the sole effects approach should be preferred as not only is it more consistent with pre-existing law in this field, but it also appropriately balances investor and State rights. Adoption of the sole effects doctrine would lead to greater uniformity and predictability in the decisions made by tribunals in expropriation claims.