Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enrichment Followed by Quantitative PCR both for Rapid Detection and as a Tool for Quantitative Risk Assessment of Food-Borne Thermotolerant Campylobacters

ABSTRACT As part of a large international project for standardization of PCR (Food-PCR; www.pcr.dk ), a multiplex, multiplatform, ready-to-go enrichment followed by a real-time PCR method, including an internal amplification control, was developed for detection of food-borne thermotolerant campylobacters in chickens. Chicken rinse samples were enriched in Bolton broth for 20 h, a simple and rapid (1-h) resin-based DNA extraction was performed, and DNA samples were then tested with two instrument platforms: ABI-PRISM 7700 and RotorGene 3000. The method was validated against an International Standard Organization (ISO)-based culture method by testing low, medium, and high levels of 12 spiked and 66 unspiked, presumably naturally contaminated, chicken rinse samples. In the RotorGene, a positive PCR response was detected in 40 samples of the 66. This was in complete agreement with the enriched ISO culture. The ABI-PRISM 7700 missed one culture-positive sample. Positive samples contained 102 to 107 CFU/ml after enrichment in Bolton broth. In the enriched samples a detection probability of 95% was obtained at levels of 1 × 103 and 2 × 103 CFU/ml in the RotorGene and ABI-PRISM, respectively. The amplification efficiency in both platforms was 90%, although the linear range of amplification of purified genomic DNA was 1.5 × 101 to 1 × 107 (R2 = 1.00) for the RotorGene and 103 to 107 (R2 = 0.99) for the ABI-PRISM. In RotorGene and ABI-PRISM the levels of precision of detection as determined by standard deviation (coefficients of variation) of 6-carboxyfluorescein (FAM) threshold cycle (Ct) values were 0.184 to 0.417 (0.65 to 2.57%) and 0.119 to 0.421 (0.59 to 1.82%), respectively. The results showed a correlation (R2) of 0.94 between the target FAM Ct values and CFU per milliliter of enriched naturally contaminated chicken samples, which indicates PCR's additional potential as a tool for quantitative risk assessment. Signal from the internal amplification control was detected in all culture-negative samples (VIC Ct: 23.1 to 28.1). The method will be taken further and validated in an international collaborative trial with regard to standardization.
Carrier detection and microsatellite analysis of duchenne and becker muscular dystrophy in spanish families

Duchenne and Becker muscular dystrophy (D/BMD) are usually problematical when trying to determine the carrier status of at‐risk women, which usually has to be based on haplotype or dosage analysis on Southern blots. Using multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis, we have detected deletions in 20 out of 44 D/BMD families with living affected members (45·5 per cent), more often in sporadic cases of DMD (14/22 with detectable deletion) than in familial ones (4/15), the majority (15/20) occurring in the distal region of the D/BMD gene. Four highly informative short tandem repeat polymorphisms (STRPs), which lie within the distal deletion hot spot of the D/BMD gene, can show loss of heterozygosity in carrier females, providing direct evidence of their carrier status. These STRPs greatly improve informativity, with a combined heterozygosity of 100 per cent and with the majority of families informative for three of the four STRPs. In 14/15 (93 per cent) of the families with distal deletions, the STRPs provided direct information on carrier status, and in some cases, they provide valuable information on recombination breakpoints and non‐paternity.
Momentum, Disposition, and tax-loss selling: the UK evidence

In this paper we explore the seasonality of UK momentum returns. We find evidence of very high momentum returns during March followed by negative returns during April. This seasonality is driven by substantial swings in performance for the Loser portfolio, with loser stocks performing very poorly during March before bouncing back in April. This pattern is what we would expect to result from tax-loss selling by individual investors and as such supports the Grinblatt and Han’s (2004) explanation for momentum that is based on disposition trading. Poor January momentum returns are not so easily explained.
Chlorosis induced by nutrient deprivation in Synechococcus sp. strain PCC 7942: not all bleaching is the same

Cell coloration changes from normal blue-green to yellow or yellow-green when the cyanobacterium Synechococcus sp. strain PCC 7942 is deprived of an essential nutrient. We found that this bleaching process (chlorosis) in cells deprived of sulfur (S) was similar to that in cells deprived of nitrogen (N), but that cells deprived of phosphorus (P) bleached differently. Cells divided once after N deprivation, twice after S deprivation, and four times after P deprivation. Chlorophyll (Chl) accumulation stopped almost immediately upon N or S deprivation but continued for several hours after P deprivation. There was no net Chl degradation during N, S, or P deprivation, although cellular Chl content decreased because cell division continued after Chl accumulation ceased. Levels of the light-harvesting phycobiliproteins declined dramatically in a rapid response to N or S deprivation, reflecting an ordered breakdown of the phycobilisomes (PBS). In contrast, P-deprived cultures continued to accumulate PBS for several hours. Whole PBS were not extensively degraded in P-deprived cells, although the PBS contents of P-deprived cells declined because of continued cell division after PBS accumulation ceased. Levels of mRNAs encoding PBS polypeptides declined by 90 to 95% in N- or S-deprived cells and by 80 to 85% in P-deprived cells. These changes in both the synthesis and stability of PBS resulted in a 90% decline in the PC/Chl ratio of N- or S-deprived cells and a 40% decline in the PC/Chl ratio of P-deprived cells. Therefore, although bleaching appears to be a general response to nutrient deprivation, it is not the same under all nutrient-limited conditions and is probably composed of independently controlled subprocesses.
How Attitudes of Leaders May Enhance Organizational Creativity: Evidence from a Chinese Study

It has been argued that a key factor in the development of competitive advantage is the provision of an environment that encourages employees to be creative. Leaders play a crucial role in cultivating an environment that encourages subordinates to be creative. Based on a survey of 219 managers in privately owned enterprises in China, this study investigates how trust in subordinates in terms of their reliability and their loyalty to the leader is related to leaders encouraging subordinates to be creative. The findings reveal positive relationships between these two types of trust in subordinates and leaders encouraging subordinates to be creative. The findings also reveal that attitude to formalization moderated the relationship between trust in subordinates and encouraging them to be creative.
Meningococcal adhesion suppressesproapoptoticgene expressionand promotes expressionofgenes supporting early embryonic and cytoprotective signaling of humanendothelial cells

expressionand promotes expressionofgenes supporting early embryonic and cytoprotective signaling of humanendothelial cells Irena Linhartova, Marek Basler, Jeffrey Ichikawa, Vladimir Pelicic, Radim Osicka, Stephen Lory, Xavier Nassif & Peter Sebo Laboratory of Molecular Biology of Bacterial Pathogens, Institute of Microbiology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic; Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Warren Alpert Building, Boston, MA, USA; and INSERM U570, Faculté de Médecine René Descartes, Paris, France
Influence on voltage distribution of composite insulator by inserting metal electrodes in weather sheds

The uneven distribution of voltage along the composite insulator strings harmed their electrical and mechanical properties heavily, which threatened the safety of power system. Inserting metal electrodes in the silicone rubber sheds of composite insulator helps increase their self-capacitance, thereby ameliorating the voltage distribution along the string. In this paper, a new structure of weather sheds with metal electrodes inserted has been designed. Tests on composite insulators with different metal electrodes setup were conducted to examine their voltage distribution performance. Corona inception voltage of the mentioned composite insulators was obtained by a remote monitoring system as a criterion of the voltage distribution performance. Simulation model of the insulators were set up and calculation of their voltage and electric field distribution were carried out by finite element method (FEM). The calculation result was in good compliance with the experiment result. The applied voltage at the live end of composite insulator decreased by 4% when inserting electrodes in the weather sheds, which was verified by both experiment and simulation results.
Dual Role of the RIC-3 Protein in Trafficking of Serotonin and Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors*

The ric-3 gene is required for maturation of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in Caenorhabditis elegans. The human homolog of RIC-3, hRIC-3, enhances expression of α7 nicotinic receptors in Xenopus laevis oocytes, whereas it totally abolishes expression of α4β2 nicotinic and 5-HT3 serotonergic receptors. Both the N-terminal region of hRIC-3, which contains two transmembrane segments, and the C-terminal region are needed for these differential effects. hRIC-3 inhibits receptor expression by hindering export of mature receptors to the cell membrane. By using chimeric proteins made of α7 and 5-HT3 receptors, we have shown that the presence of an extracellular isoleucine close to the first transmembrane receptor fragment is responsible for the transport arrest induced by hRIC-3. Enhancement of α7 receptor expression occurs, at least, at two levels: by increasing the number of mature receptors and facilitating its transport to the membrane. Certain amino acids of a putative amphipathic helix present at the large cytoplasmic region of the α7 subunit are required for these actions. Therefore, hRIC-3 can act as a specific regulator of receptor expression at different levels.
Analyst Forecast Revisions and Market Price Discovery

We document several factors that help explain cross‐sectional variations in the post‐revision price drift associated with analyst forecast revisions. First, the market does not make a sufficient distinction between revisions that provide new information (“high‐innovation” revisions) and revisions that merely move toward the consensus (“low‐innovation” revisions). Second, the price adjustment process is faster and more complete for “celebrity” analysts (Institutional Investor All‐Stars) than for more obscure yet highly accurate analysts (Wall Street Journal Earnings‐Estimators). Third, controlling for other factors, the price adjustment process is faster and more complete for firms with greater analyst coverage. Finally, a substantial portion of the delayed price adjustment occurs around subsequent earnings‐announcement and forecast‐revision dates. Collectively, these findings show that more subtle aspects of an earnings revision signal can hinder the efficacy of market price discovery, particularly in fir.
TRACKS: Audit Quality, Earnings, and the Shanghai Stock Market Reaction

This study examines whether audit quality in the Shanghai Stock Exchange affects the positive association between change in earnings per share and cumulative abnormal return (CAR). Regression results using 659 Shanghai listed company observations in 1996 and 1997 show that the positive market reaction to increase in earnings is stronger for firms audited by high quality auditors. A broad conclusion of the study is that audit quality is playing an important role in China and that investors in the Shanghai market differentiate between high quality versus low quality auditors.
Factors Influencing the Profitability of Fertilizer Use on Maize in Zambia

Fertilizer use remains very low in most of Africa despite widespread agreement that much higher use rates are required for sustained agricultural productivity growth. This study estimates maize yield response functions in agro-ecological Zone IIA, a relatively high potential zone of Zambia, to determine the profitability of fertilizer use under a range of small farm conditions found within this zone. The theoretical framework used in this study incorporates agronomic principles of the crop growth process. The model distinguishes different roles of inputs and non-input factors in crop production. We estimate the effects of conventional production inputs as well as household characteristics and government programs on maize yield for households in the dominant acrisols soil type. Results indicate that even within this particular soil type within Zone IIA, the maize-fertilizer response rate in the two specific years varied widely across households. The main factors explaining the variability in maize-fertilizer response rates were the rate of application, the timeliness of fertilizer availability, the use of animal draught power during land preparation, and whether the household incurred the death of an adult member in the past three years. These modifying factors, as well as variations in input and output prices due to proximity to roads and markets, substantially affected the profitability of fertilizer use on maize. Fertilizer use on maize tended to be unprofitable at full commercial fertilizer prices for farmers who received fertilizer late and who were located in relatively remote areas.
Defensive Development

This article expands the standard consumption versus production debate in the gentrification literature by examining the role of racial conflict in neighborhood change. Drawing from historical and ethnographic research, it analyzes gentrification in Douglas/Grand Boulevard, a Black community on Chicago's South Side. It argues that although capital movements and middle-class consumption patterns created opportunities for gentrification, racial ordering politicized it, prompting Blacks to engage in what the author terms defensive development. This strategy aims to protect Black neighborhoods from control by White elites. Yet it ultimately promotes gentrification by politically and physically marginalizing the neighborhood's most economically vulnerable residents.
Top Management Resignation and Firms' Subsequent Bankruptcy

ABSTRACT: Agency theory indicates that a moral hazard occurs when an agent (manager) with superior information has an incentive to behave inappropriately from the perspective of the principal (investor) with inferior information. Because of the superior information that top executives have, they will recognize if the company is declining before outside investors. This gives the executives an opportunity to resign prior to the investors' awareness of the decline. An executive can use this private information to benefit at the expense of the investing public. This study investigates a sample of 9,942 firm-years from 2008 and 2009 and our logistic regression results show a significant relationship between CEO and CFO resignations and the firm's subsequent bankruptcy, even after controlling for other predictors of bankruptcy. However, when both variables are included in the model, only CFO resignation is significant. Due to the significance of these resignations, when some investors have greater details of th.
Sustainability in the Turkish retailing industry

Retailing is a diverse and dynamic industry offering a wide range of goods and services to consumers.There is also an increasing recognition that this corporate retail power is the driving force for the whole of the supply chain. Due to these facts, it is argued that retailing companies have a huge potential to impact on sustainability performance of national economies. In order to materialize this potential, performance in sustainability should be assessed, and evaluating sustainability performance of an industry requires developing a system of performance evaluation framework. In the context of sustainable development, selecting proper sustainability indicators are one of the most crucial steps to fulfill performance evaluations. Since there has been no attempt to develop proper sustainability indicators in retailing industry, this paper aims to select appropriate indicators for future evaluation of industrial sustainability performance for grocery retailing in terms of three sustainability aspects: social, environmental and economic. To this end, (1) a comprehensive analysis of the existing literature was done, (2) and Analytic Hierarchy Process|Weighted Additive model-based table was developed to rank the indicators for each aspect, (3) the input for the tables was obtained from rapidly growing grocery retailing industry in Turkey by conducting surveys, and (4) using the average values of the tables, sustainability indicators for each aspect were ranked and the most appropriate ones were selected. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Crystal structure of 8-(4-methylphenyl)-2′-deoxyadenosine hemihydrate

8-(4-Methylphenyl)-2′-deoxyadenosine was synthesized using a Suzuki–Miyaura cross-coupling reaction of 8-bromo-d-2′-deoxyadenosine and 4-methylphenylboronic acid in the presence of Pd(OAc)2 and a salton-derived ligand as a highly catalytically active system. There are two independent molecules plus one solvent water in the asymmetric unit and the packing in the crystal lattice is heavily influenced by hydrogen bonding
Jurisprudential Regimes in Supreme Court Decision Making

We theorize that if law matters in Supreme Court decision making, it matters not as a mechanistic force that dictates decisions, but as an institutional construct created by justices who possess political attitudes. Jurisprudential regimes identify relevant case factors and/or set the level of scrutiny or balancing the justices will use. These jurisprudential regimes have the potential to make a significant difference in the decisions of the justices. We identify a candidate jurisprudential regime, content-neutrality, which appears to govern the general area of free expression law. The Court applies the strictest standard of review to regulations of expression that target the content or viewpoint of expression. Relying on a series of statistical tests using logistic regression, we find that the justices take seriously this jurisprudential regime.
Paradoxos em finanças: teoria moderna versus finanças comportamentais

This study discusses the Behavioral Finance, one of the most important and controversial innovations in finance, that confronts the traditionally accepted paradigm based on the Modern Finance Theory. Initially, a synthesis of potential problems of decision-making is carried through, with examples of some non-rational aspects that make up important paradoxes in finance. After a discussion of the prospect theory, the seminal experiments of Kahneman and Tversky are replicated in a Brazilian sample. Many situations that violate premises of the theory of the expected utility, base of the Modern Finance Theory, are presented. Empirical results show that evidences of many perception biases in decisionmaking are consistent, independently of aspects related with the evolution of the market and the culture or nationality of individuals. The separation between theory and practice in financial decisions suggests the Behavioral Finance as an alternative to explain attitudes of economic agents.
Action research to explore perceptions of risk in project management

Uses research in a major UK company on the introduction of an electronic document management system to explore perceptions of, and attitudes to, risk. Phenomenological methods were used; with subsequent dialogue transcripts evaluated with Winmax dialogue software, using an adapted theoretical framework based upon an analysis of the literature. The paper identifies a number of factors, and builds a framework, that should support a greater understanding of risk assessment and project management by the academic community and practitioners.
Prophylaxis against bone loss in Kock reservoir patients with reduced glomerular filtration rate

Objective We investigated whether treatment with calcium carbonate and vitamin D3 can improve the bone mineral content of patients with ileal reservoirs for continent urinary diversion and a reduced glomerular filtration rate (GFR). Material and methods Twenty-six patients with Kock reservoirs were included in the study. Bone mineralization was determined using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Kidney function was estimated from Cr–EDTA clearance and serum cystatin C concentration. Osteocalcin and parathyroid hormone in serum were also measured. Patients with reduced GFR were treated with calcium carbonate and vitamin D3 perorally. Results Bone mineral density in the femur neck and hip increased in the treatment group, as reflected by an improved T score. Conclusion Patients with ileal reservoirs for continent urinary diversion and reduced kidney function should be supplemented with calcium carbonate and vitamin D3 in order to reduce the long-term risk of osteoporosis.
Women in the Urban Informal Sector: Perpetuation of Meagre Earnings

The argument of exploitation of women workers in the labour market notwithstanding this article examines whether women in India are unable to participate fully in the labour market because they are required to combine their household activities with income yielding jobs. They are constrained to work in the neighbourhood of their residence (the location of the residence having been decided upon by male family members) and can access jobs only through informal contacts (which usually means they end up in jobs similar to those of the contact persons) both of which reduce their bargaining power considerably. The tendency for specialized activities to be concentrated in different geographic locations of a city further restricts the possibility of women workers being engaged in diverse jobs and thus aggravates the situation of an excess supply of labour in a particular activity. Constrained choice limited contacts of women and physical segmentation of the labour market perpetuate forces that entrap women workers in a low-income situation with worse outcomes than those of their male counterparts. Consequently with greater intensity of work they still continue to receive low wages while residual participation in the labour market restricts the possibilities of skill formation and upward mobility. All of these factors offer a substantive basis for policy recommendations. (authors)
A new large oregoniid spider crab of the genus Pleistacantha Miers, 1879, from the Bay of Bengal, India (Crustacea, Brachyura, Majoidea)

Abstract A new species of deep-water oregoniid spider crab of the genus Pleistacantha Miers, 1879, is described from the Indian Ocean. The species is distinct in possessing a prominently inflated carapace in which the median parts of the branchial regions almost meet. It can also be distinguished from its closest congeners, P. moseleyi (Miers, 1885), P. pungens (Wood-Mason, in Wood-Mason & Alcock, 1891), and P. ori Ahyong & Ng, 2007, in its more elongate and less spinose chelipeds and ambulatory legs, shorter third maxilliped, trapezoidal male pleon and a male first gonopod which is relatively stout with a short subdistal dorsal papilla.
The ‘Distress Barometer’: validation of method of combining the Distress Thermometer with a rated complaint scale

Objective: Screening instruments may enhance the clinician's ability to detect elevated levels of distress in cancer patients, but these are often neither suitable nor effective for the routine of daily care for cancer patients. The newly developed Distress Barometer (DB) was intended to provide medical doctors with a convenient tool to interpret ‘at single glance’ the nature and the intensity of distress in ambulatory cancer patients. The DB, i.e. a combination of the Distress Thermometer (DT) and a new tool, the Colored Complaint Scale was developed to improve the specificity of distress screening without decreasing the sensitivity of the Distress Thermometer.