Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors predictive of response to interferon-alpha therapy in hepatitis C virus type 1b infection.

Interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) has been used to treat hepatitis C Virus (HCV)-induced infection but has been effective in only about half of all patients. It is suggested that the different responses to IFN-alpha treatment in HCV infection may be influenced by HCV genotypes, HCV RNA titer at the beginning of IFN-alpha therapy, and the sequences of the interferon sensitivity determining region (ISDR). However, there have also been reports showing that these have no relation to an IFN-alpha effect. In a previous study, it was found that the nucleotide sequence variation in the hypervariable region (HVR) 1 of the HCV could predict the effect of IFN-alpha. In the present investigation, an attempt was made to determine the predictive factors of IFN-alpha therapy. Twenty-six patients with HCV infection were treated with IFN-alpha. Among these, 13 patients recovered after 3 to 6 months of IFN-alpha treatment, although the other 13 patients showed no response after 6 months of treatment with IFN-alpha. In order to determine the predictive factors of IFN-alpha therapy, the ALT levels, HCV genotypes, HCV serum titer, and the quasispecies of HVR 1 were compared between responders and non-responders. It is suggested that the variation in the HVR 1 and HCV serum titer can be used to predict the effect of IFN-alpha.
Maximum warming occurs about one decade after a carbon dioxide emission

It is known that carbon dioxide emissions cause the Earth to warm, but no previous study has focused on examining how long it takes to reach maximum warming following a particular CO2 emission. Using conjoined results of carbon-cycle and physical-climate model intercomparison projects (Taylor et al , Joos et al ), we find the median time between an emission and maximum warming is 10.1 years, with a 90% probability range of 6.6–30.7 years. We evaluate uncertainties in timing and amount of warming, partitioning them into three contributing factors: carbon cycle, climate sensitivity and ocean thermal inertia. If uncertainty in any one factor is reduced to zero without reducing uncertainty in the other factors, the majority of overall uncertainty remains. Thus, narrowing uncertainty in century-scale warming depends on narrowing uncertainty in all contributing factors. Our results indicate that benefit from avoided climate damage from avoided CO2 emissions will be manifested within the lifetimes of people who acted to avoid that emission. While such avoidance could be expected to benefit future generations, there is potential for emissions avoidance to provide substantial benefit to current generations.
Panel Data Analysis of the Beveridge Curve: Is There a Macroeconomic Relation between the Rate of Unemployment and the Vacancy Rate?

This study investigates whether the Beveridge curve--the relation between vacancy and unemployment rate--is helpful for the quantification of structural unemployment. Since aggregate time series are too short to test detailed hypotheses about the Beveridge curve, the author assembles a panel of nine regions in West Germany. Analyses of these data produce little support for a structural macroeconomic interpretation of the Beveridge curve. The observed shifts of the Beveridge curve are too sudden to be explained by structural changes; there is evidence for aggregation bias; and variables associated with structural unemployment do not substitute for the explanatory power of dummy variables for the observed shifts while cyclical variables do so. Copyright 1991 by The London School of Economics and Political Science.
Auction market simulator for price based operation

Through the passage of new public utility regulatory policies, the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) encourages an open market system for price based operation. A previous paper describes a framework for price based operation and the associated technical issues in an auction market structure. This paper presents an auction market simulator to experimentally study the aspects of power system operation in a price-based environment. The proposed simulator can also be used as a tool to train system operators how to perform electric power transaction in the deregulated environment. This paper presents the simulation results of auction market for price based operation in the 24-bus, 10-generator IEEE Reliability Test System.
Consumers' Willingness to Pay for Irradiated Poultry Products

Abstract The study develops an empirical model to estimate the likelihood of consumers' acceptance of and willingness to pay for irradiated poultry products based on the assumption of a two-step decision-making process. A probit model on whether or not to buy irradiated poultry products is estimated jointly with an OLS equation for the price premiums that consumers are willing to pay for irradiated chicken breast meat. The study is based on the data collected from telephone interviews with a randomly selected sample of 303 adults, 18 years of age and older in Georgia, USA. The study identifies important sociodemographic variables and other qualitative and attitudinal factors that may affect consumer acceptance and willingness to pay for irradiated poultry products. The results suggest that educating consumer about irradiation would be beneficial to the food industry. The producers should develop strategies targeting the market segment that is receptive for using irradiation in the production process to enhance food safety and reduce incidents of food-borne illness.
Stable Climate Coalitions (Nash) and International Trade

The basic model of the literature on self-enforcing international environmental agreements is a model of autarkic countries. We extend that model by international trade and investigate its impact on the performance of ’Nash’ coalitions and on their stability, in particular, in a general equilibrium framework. First we characterize the performance of coalitions and non-coalition countries with regard to emissions and welfare and compare business as usual with the coalition-fringe scenario. In qualitative terms, the results in our free-trade model turn out to be the same as in the basic model for quadratic functional forms. In our model with international trade countries influence the terms of trade with their choice of policy and they make strategic use of that terms-of-trade effect. We find, however, that in the quadratic version of our model - as in the basic model - stable coalitions consist of no more than two countries. Finally, we explore the outcome of trade liberalization by moving from autarky to free trade. Although the coalition steps up its mitigation effort, world emissions rise which may be referred to as a ’green paradox of trade liberalization’. Trade liberalization turns out to be bad for the environment as well as for the coalition countries’ welfare and the aggregate welfare of all countries; it reduces the range of profitable coalitions, and it even tends to hamper the formation of stable coalitions.
New geographies of work : a case study from Sweden

This paper describes and analyses the geography of work, i.e., the spatial patterns in where paid work is done. The geography of work may diverge from the geography of employment when paid work is done at the premises of client organizations, during commuting, on business trips, on external meetings, at home or at other places. The particular patterns in the geography of work depend on a number of factors, possibilities and constraints. The paper takes its point of departure from the debate about how structural economic changes resulting from evolving service industries and the development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) entail new forms for the organization of paid work. Flexibility, reflexivity, flows and places are key concepts. The paper presents a case study from Stockholm that takes a workplace perspective and looks at knowledge-intensive work in a public sector organization. The empirical study analyses data from interviews, time diaries and a questionnaire. We analyse how the geography of work is the result of negotiations between different parties and in different arenas, and how this spatial pattern is the result of the character of work tasks and accessibility of ICT support. The discussion illustrates a complex picture of the coexistence of spatial fix and spatial flexibility, and how this may cause tensions but also convenient solutions for organizing and conducting paid work.
The Risk Management Paradox for Urban Recreation and Park Managers: Providing high risk recreation within a risk management context

Abstract This discussion explores the relationship between adventure ideology (meeting the challenge, overcoming the odds, being responsible for one's own actions and experiencing the full meaning of freedom and choice) and adventure practice which in a social climate of individualism has not only necessitated the need to hold persons accountable but in turn has spawned the growth of a risk management industry. While risk, as a negative concept, can be applied to nearly every human action of which the consequences are uncertain, as a component of recreation it is a positive concept and represents a socially acceptable opportunity to engage in behaviours which have risk as an associated, and sometimes, important element. However, the political/institutional need to make environments safe through regulation on the one hand and the increasing public desire to be stimulated through controlled doses of risk‐taking on the other, presents the urban recreation manager with a paradox. To explore this paradox through the literature the meaning of adventure and risk in outdoor recreation is clarified by reviewing the context in which we confront risk in our daily lives, the criteria used to separate adventure and risk recreations from those not normally associated with risk‐taking, the antecedent concepts associated with risk‐taking, and the relationship between risk participation in recreation and risk management.
The role of monogenic disease in children with very early onset inflammatory bowel disease

Purpose of review Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a multifactorial disease caused by dysregulated immune responses to commensal or pathogenic intestinal microbes, resulting in chronic intestinal inflammation. Patients diagnosed with IBD occurring before the age of 5 are a unique population, known as very early onset (VEO)-IBD and can be phenotypically and genetically distinct from older-onset IBD. We aim to review the clinical presentation of children with VEO-IBD and recent discoveries that point to genomic drivers of disease that may impact our therapeutic decisions. Recent findings VEO-IBD is increasing in incidence and is associated with more severe disease, aggressive progression and poor response to most conventional therapies. This article will review the advances in sequencing technology that have led to identification of novel gene variants associated with disease and potentially new targeted therapeutic options. Summary Children with VEO-IBD may present with a different phenotype and more severe disease than older children and adults. Identification of the causal gene or pathways, these children may allow for true precision medicine with targeted therapy and improved disease course.
Is there a cointegrating relationship between Australia's fossil-fuel based carbon dioxide emissions per capita and her GDP per capita?

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emission per capita of Australia, a high-income economy with a fossil fuel-rich fuel-mix, is proven to have a strong cointegrating relationship with her gross domestic product (GDP) per capita. A conditional equilibrium correction model (ECM) has been developed to quantify the relationship between the two variables by employing the autoregressive distributed lag bound-testing approach to cointegration. ECM reveals that 1% growth in Australia's GDP per capita induces 0.7% growth in her CO2 emission per capita in the long-run. The short-run dynamics are such that 1% growth in the previous year's GDP per capita leads to about 0.33% growth in current year's CO2 emission per capita. Moreover, any deviation from the long-run equilibrium is corrected in about two years and nine months. The conditional ECM developed is robust against functional form misspecification and have stable regression coefficients over the sample period studied. Thus, it could be used to reliably predict the future CO2 emissions in Australia. [Received: July 15, 2009; Accepted: December 17, 2009].
Linear prediction based uniform state sampling for sampling based motion planning systems

We discuss the optimality and computational efficiency of sampling based motion planning (SBMP), which calculates dynamically precise and approximately optimal state transitions using arbitrarily selected nonlinear control system models. To ensure high optimality and computational efficiency, SBMP requires an approximately uniform state sampling function, though the non-linearity of the system models does not allow a perfect function. We propose linear prediction-based uniform state sampling (LPUSS) that samples approximately uniform state points while ensuring a dynamically correct state transition profile with a small calculation cost. LPUSS samples a state by using the given non-linear control system model after determining the input values by using a local linear transition model. We developed a mechanical motion planning system using LPUSS, articulated body algorithm, and parallel computing techniques. To validate LPUSS, we conducted experiments on double, triple, and sixtuple inverted pendulum models. LPUSS showed better optimality and computational efficiency with the double and triple inverted pendulum models, compared with randomized kinodynamic planning (RKP), which is based on rapid random tree (RRT), and our previously proposed rapid semi-optimal motion-planning method in which state sampling is based on uniform inputs. In particular, compared with our previous method, LPUSS was respectively 130 times and 3,000 times faster on double and triple inverted pendulum models under the condition of the same optimality. LPUSS found an approximately optimal swing up motion for the sixtuple inverted pendulum model within 40 minutes. According to our survey, there is no other optimization method that is applicable to higher than quadruple inverted pendulum models with standard constraints.
The impact of corporate governance on employment relations in South Korea: the shareholder versus stakeholder perspectives

This study empirically examined the impact of corporate governance on employment relations outcomes utilizing a comprehensive data set drawn from 214 Korean firms. The study contrasted the stakeholder and shareholder perspectives of corporate governance in investigating the impact of corporate governance on employment relations outcomes. The results showed that the stakeholder corporate governance orientation (as compared to the shareholder orientation) had positive relationships with education/training expense, the level of average employee tenure and industrial relations climate, and had a negative association with number of strikes. Overall, the results implied that the stakeholder orientation of firms led to more beneficial effects for employees and more consensual relations with labor unions than the shareholder orientation did.
Australian Public and Private Capital Formation, 1901-75

We present new estimates of Australian public capital formation as a reasonably consistent time series for 1901 to 1975 and comment on some issues they raise. The series is disaggregated by level of government and by function and separates public enterprises from other junctions. Primarily because we recognize internal funding of capital formation by public enterprises the new estimates differ quite radically from existing estimates. After 1930 the government share of total capital formation declined from a traditional average of one half to less than 40 per cent. Associated with this relative restraint since the early 1950s were an increasingly ‘business-like’ management of public enterprise and a growing pressure on the private sector to provide additional infra-structure.
MODE OF ACTION OF ETHAMBUTOL

Forbes, M. (Lederle Laboratories Division, Pearl River, N.Y.), N. A. Kuck, and E. A. Peets. Mode of action of ethambutol. J. Bacteriol. 84:1099–1103. 1962. —Ethambutol [2,2′-(ethylenediimino) di-1-butanol] arrested multiplication of Mycobacterium smegmatis cells and eventually effected their death. The inhibitory effect of the drug on multiplication did not become apparent until several hours after its addition to the culture. The drug had no effect on the survival of nonproliferating cells. It had little or no effect on the metabolism of nonproliferating cells, but cells from cultures whose growth had been inhibited by ethambutol showed evidence of impaired metabolism. C14-labeled ethambutol was taken up rapidly by both proliferating and nonproliferating cells. The observations are consistent with the hypothesis that ethambutol exerts its antibacterial effect by interfering with the synthesis of a metabolite(s) needed for multiplication. Depletion of the metabolite(s) results in arrest of multiplication, impairment of metabolism, and loss of viability. Resistance to ethambutol cannot be explained by the failure of the cells to take up the drug, since the drug was equally bound by resistant and sensitive cells.
A linear mixed model for the hedonic pricing model

This paper introduces a mixed effects model for an application of the hedonic price regression model for panel data. Thus far, the development of hedonic pricing regression for repeated measurements has received relatively little attention. This approach is applied to compare different pricing strategies of companies in the digital still camera industry in Japan. The results suggest that there exist statistically significant differences in speed of price decline among companies and price differences between two observed stores. The results from this analysis are different from those of the previous study in the digital still camera using a modified PCA hedonic regression model by Miyamoto and Tsubaki Behaviormetrika 2001;2:111-152, which may bias to more significant results through fitting fixed effects models without serial correlations.
How to Count Patents and Value Intellectual Property: Uses of Patent Renewal and Application Data

Patent counts are very imperfect measures of innovative output. This paper discusses how additional data-the number of years a patent is renewed and the number of countries in which protection for the same invention is sought - can be used to improve on counts in studies which require a measure of the extent of innovation. A simple renewal based weighting scheme is proposed which may remove half of the noise in patent counts as a measure of innovative output. The paper also illustrates how these data can be used to estimate the value of the proprietary rights created by the patent laws. The parameters estimated in this analysis can be used to answer a series of questions related to the value of patents. We illustrate with estimates of how the value of patent protection would vary under alternative legal rules and renewal fees, and with estimates of the international flows of returns from the patent system. Recent progress in the development of databases has increased the potential for this type of analysis.
Role of cocontraction in the O2 cost of walking in children with cerebral palsy.

UNLABELLED A major movement related limitation for children with spastic cerebral palsy (CP) is the compromised gait pattern, which may explain their excessive energy cost of locomotion. The aims of this study were to determine differences in the O2 cost of locomotion between children with CP (7 males, 2 females; 12.7 +/- 2.8 yr) and able-bodied controls (7 male, 1 female; 13.6 +/- 2.1 yr) and to assess the contribution that cocontraction of agonist and antagonist muscles had upon the elevated O2 cost seen in children with CP versus able-bodied controls. The treadmill submaximal walking protocol consisted of 2 x 4 min intermittent stages at 3 km.h-1 and 90% of the predetermined fastest walking speed (FWS) at 0% grade. Electromyographic data were collected during the final minute of each bout from vastus lateralis and hamstrings (thigh) and tibialis anterior and soleus (lower leg). Significant (P < 0.05) differences were noted at 3 km.h-1 for mass-relative VO2. (CP: 16.6 +/- 6.5 vs control: 10.2 +/- 1.2 ml.kg-1.min-1), % VO2max (CP: 53.5 +/- 26.0 vs CONTROL 22.5 +/- 4.93) and heart rate (CP: 143 +/- 41 vs CONTROL 91 +/- 14 beats.min-1). Thigh and lower leg muscle cocontraction accounted for 51.4% and 42.8%, respectively, of the variability in VO2 for the subjects with CP at 3 km.h-1. These results suggest that cocontraction is a major factor responsible for the higher energy cost of walking seen in children with CP.
Critical linkages among TQM factors and business results

Purpose – To empirically investigate the relationships among critical TQM factors and business results.Design/methodology/approach – Twenty‐three hypotheses regarding the relationships among TQM factors and business results have been developed through literature review and tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The study utilized survey data obtained from US manufacturing companies.Findings – Provides information about the results of each hypothesis, their implications, and how these findings compare to previous studies. Pays special attention to the relationships between TQM factors and business results and discusses findings in this area by offering insights from 22 previous studies that analyzed TQM‐performance relationships.Research limitations/implications – Researchers could use the results of this study to explore various related hypotheses in more detail and improve the accuracy of future empirical quality management studies. The study makes specific recommendations for such future studi.
Transcriptome analysis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 grown at both body and elevated temperatures

Functional genomics research can give us valuable insights into bacterial gene function. RNA Sequencing (RNA-seq) can generate information on transcript abundance in bacteria following abiotic stress treatments. In this study, we used the RNA-seq technique to study the transcriptomes of the opportunistic nosocomial pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 following heat shock. Samples were grown at both the human body temperature (37 °C) and an arbitrarily-selected temperature of 46 °C. In this work using RNA-seq, we identified 133 genes that are differentially expressed at 46 °C compared to the human body temperature. Our work identifies some key P. aeruginosa PAO1 genes whose products have importance in both environmental adaptation as well as in vivo infection in febrile hosts. More importantly, our transcriptomic results show that many genes are only expressed when subjected to heat shock. Because the RNA-seq can generate high throughput gene expression profiles, our work reveals many unanticipated genes with further work to be done exploring such genes products.