Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Microbiota of Plaque Microcosm Biofilms: Effect of Three Times Daily Sucrose Pulses in Different Simulated Oral Environments

Aim: To explore the Ecological Plaque Hypothesis for dental caries. To test modification of the microbiota of dental plaque microcosm biofilms by sucrose pulsing during growth in two different simulated oral fluids, and with a urea-induced plaque pH elevation. Methods: Plaque microcosm biofilms were cultured in an ‘artificial mouth’ with and without 6-min 5% w/v sucrose pulses every 8 h in an environment of continuously supplied saliva-like defined medium with mucin (DMM), or basal medium mucin (BMM, a high-peptone-yeast extract oral fluid analogue), and also in DMM + 10 mmol/l urea, with sucrose pulsing. Forty plaque species were quantified by checkerboard DNA:DNA hybridization analysis. Results: Sucrose pulsing extended rapid plaque growth in DMM and BMM, inducing major microbiota changes in DMM but not in BMM. In DMM, some streptococci and lactobacilli were unaffected while others implicated in caries, together with Candida albicans and Capnocytophaga gingivalis, increased. Aerobic, microaerophilic and major anaerobic species decreased. Elevation of the pHmax from 6.4 to 7.0 had almost no effect on the microbiota. BMM plaques were distinct from DMM plaques with particularly low levels of Candida albicans and Actinomyces. Conclusions: Modest sucrose exposure in a saliva-like environment causes profound changes in the developmental self-organization of plaque microcosms, supporting the Ecological Plaque Hypothesis. Nevertheless, there is significant stability in microbial composition with varying pH near neutrality. Increases in levels of specific bacteria in response to sucrose could be characteristic of organisms particularly important in caries.
How Does Price Presentation Influence Consumer Choice? The Case of Life Insurance Products

type="main" xml:lang="en"> Life insurance is an important product for many individuals, both to protect dependents against the premature death of an income producer and to provide savings in later retirement years. These kinds of products, however, can be quite complex. Regulatory authorities and consumers currently ask for more cost transparency with respect to product components (e.g., risk premium for death benefits, savings premium, cost of investment guarantee) and administration costs. The aim of this article is to measure the effects of different forms of presenting the price of life insurance contract components and especially of embedded investment guarantees on consumer evaluation of those products. The intention is to understand the extent to which price presentation affects consumer demand. This is done by means of an experimental study and by focusing on unit-linked life insurance products. Our findings reveal that contrary to other consumer products, there are no precise effects of “price bundling” and “price optic” on consumer evaluation and purchase intention in the case of life insurance. Consumer experience and price perception, however, yield a significant moderating effect.
Sustainable Credit And Interest Rates

With negative growth in real production in many countries and debt levels which become an increasing burden on developed societies, the calls for a change in economic policy and even the monetary system become louder and increasingly impatient. We research the consequences of a system of credit and debt, that still allows for the expansion of credit and fundamentally retains many features of the present monetary system, without the instability inherent in the present system.
Multilaboratory Testing of Antifungal Drug Combinations against Candida Species and Aspergillus fumigatus: Utility of 100 Percent Inhibition as the Endpoint

ABSTRACT Four laboratories tested three isolates of Candida species and two isolates of Aspergillus fumigatus using 96-well plates containing combinations of amphotericin B, anidulafungin, caspofungin, micafungin, fluconazole, itraconazole, posaconazole, and voriconazole. The majority of summation fractional inhibitory concentration indices (ΣFICI) based on the Lowe additivity formula suggested indifferent drug interactions (ΣFICI > 0.5 and ≤4.0) and no instance of drug antagonism (ΣFICI > 4.0). The intra- and interlaboratory agreement rates were superior when MIC100 readings were used as endpoints (at a 99% confidence interval [CI]).
Income distribution : measurement, transition and analysis of urban China, 1981-1990

Many aspects of economic analysis require judgements to be made about distributions. When agreement on a single criterion for judgement is not possible, it is necessary to examine whether one distribution is better than another from a number of perspectives. The problem of 'distributional dominance', which Part One addresses, is precisely this problem of ordering two distributions in relation to one or more objective functions, via use of a single 'dominance criterion'. Four themes are pursued. It is argued that welfare, poverty and inequality dominance criteria can be fruitfully analyzed within a single framework. The need to approach the problem of distributional dominance as a statistical one is stressed. Estimators and a method of inference are proposed and are themselves tested via a simulation study. The likely effect of aggregation on the attained ordering of distributions is assessed, also via a simulation study. A critical re-appraisal is presented of the most widely-used dominance criterion, second-order stochastic dominance, and alternative criteria are proposed. The usefulness of thinking of dominance criteria in terms of curves within bounds is emphasized. Part Two of the thesis is a study of the distribution of income in urban China in the eighties, using both aggregated, nationwide data and disaggregated data for two provinces. This study is both an application of the methods developed in Part One and a case-study of the dynamics of income distribution in a transitional economy. Evidence is found that cash-income inequality has grown over the decade, and this is linked to the reform process. However, inequality remains exceptionally low by international standards. Moreover, both the system of price subsidies and that of cash compensation introduced to replace the subsidies are shown to have exerted an equalizing influence on the urban distribution of income.
Glucose regulates leucine-induced insulin release and the expression of the branched chain ketoacid dehydrogenase E1 alpha subunit gene in pancreatic islets.

Much evidence has accumulated to support the idea that leucine can stimulate insulin release by allosterically activating glutamate dehydrogenase thus enhancing glutamate metabolism. It is less clear how the metabolism of leucine itself contributes to the signal for insulin release. We recently found that culturing pancreatic islets for 1 day at low glucose (1 mM) suppressed glucose-induced insulin release, but preserved leucine-induced insulin release. When islets were cultured at high glucose (20 mM), glucose-induced insulin release was preserved, but leucine-induced insulin release was suppressed (MacDonald, M. J., Fahien, L. A., McKenzie, D. I., and Moran, S. M. (1990) Am. J. Physiol. , 259, E548-E554). The suppression of leucine-induced insulin release can be explained by glucose's suppression of the synthesis of the enzyme that catalyzes the first committed step of leucine metabolism, branched chain ketoacid dehydrogenase complex (BCKDH). High glucose suppressed the enzyme activity of the E1 component of the BCKDH complex, as well as the total activity of the BCKDH complex, to usually negligible levels in islets and decreased by an average of 90% the mRNA which encodes E1 alpha, the catalytic subunit of the E1 component of BCKDH, in islets and rat insulinoma cells. Time course studies showed that about 24 h in culture was required to maximally induce or suppress the expression of BCKDH E1 alpha. Culture at high glutamine with or without leucine mimicked to a lesser and more variable degree the effects of high glucose on leucine-induced insulin release and BCKDH E1 alpha mRNA. Leucine-plus-glutamine-induced insulin release was present after culture of islets with glucose and with or without any other secretagogue. Also, glutamate dehydrogenase transcripts and enzyme activity were not significantly altered by varying the concentration of glucose in the culture medium. Thus, leucine's insulinotropism via activation of glutamate dehydrogenase is constitutive. Preproinsulin mRNA levels were markedly increased at high glucose and glyceraldehyde phosphate dehydrogenase transcripts were either unaffected or slightly increased by glucose. Glutamine did not significantly effect the expression of genes other than BCKDH E1 alpha, and leucine had little or no effect on the expression of any of the four genes. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Research on fast and accurate calculation method of cogging torque

The cogging torque in the interior permanent magnet synchronous machine(PMSM) leads to mechanical resonance, vibration, and noise, which would reduce the control accuracy of the machine. It is important to calculate the cogging torque of the interior PMSM. Up to now, there is no accurate calculation method of the cogging torque for the interior PMSM, and the accurate calculation relies on the Finite Element Method (FEM) which consumes long time. In view of this situation, a fast and accurate calculation method of cogging torque in interior PMSM is proposed in this paper. The distributions of air gap flux density with different armature structures have been obtained by FEM, then from which the air gap magnetomotive force and effective air gap length are deduced. Applied the Fourier expansion, the effective harmonics can be solved and the cogging torque would be calculated with analytical formula. Compared with the FEM result, the accuracy of the calculation method has been verified.
Delay constrained optimal power allocation in high-speed railway scenarios

Widespread deployment of high-speed railways in recent years brings huge demands for high-mobility broadband wireless communications. To provide broadband wireless access for passengers in the train, a well acknowledged approach is to apply a two-hop architecture in which users communicate with base stations (BSs) via a mobile relay (MR). Considering quality of service (QoS) requirement of passengers, a crucial issue in this two-hop architecture is how to match user data arrival process and time-varying wireless channel service process with delay constraint at the MR. We deal with this problem from the perspective of power allocation. For constant-rate data arrival and large-scale-fading wireless channel in high-speed railway scenarios, we first present a necessary and sufficient condition for avoiding buffer overflow as well as infinite delay with constant transmit power, and when the transmit power can be adapted, we present the delay constrained optimal power allocation (DCOPA). We find that the proposed DCOPA bridges traditional channel inversion and water filling, which are only suitable for special cases where delay is not allowed and delay is quite loose respectively. Besides, with DCOPA, we present the inherent tradeoff between delay and minimal average transmit power in the system, which provides the optimal operating point for delay constrained traffic at the MR.
Transitions and progress: teachers' views of progress in attainment of pupils age 5-10

There has been a longstanding concern in England and Wales with the year on year progress made by pupils, but particularly at times of change, such as transfer from primary to secondary school at age 11. In Coalton, a former mining town in the North of England, a five year UK government funded initiative known as Charter for Transition has been put in place to try to overcome some of these difficulties and improve the learning opportunities for pupils aged 5-16. The programme takes place over a 5-year period in various stages, but in this paper we make use of data from the first two years. The research team examines the viewpoints of teachers from schools that were receiving additional support in their efforts to raise achievement in phase one and the pilot phase of the project about what they saw as the main benefits of this work. We present the beginnings of our exploration of teachers’ judgements of this work, and what they saw as the difficulties with associating the project with pupil attainment.
Cash Holdings and Bond Returns Around Takeovers

Using a large sample of 2712 unique U.S. domestic takeovers over the period 1993 to 2014, we show a negative relation between the level of cash holdings and post-announcement corporate bond returns. Our findings support the agency cost of cash holdings view and show that bondholders and shareholders share the same interests with respect to cash policy around takeovers. We further find that cash holdings are viewed less negatively by bondholders in firms with strong shareholders. This paper is the first to document the role of cash holdings on bondholder wealth around takeover announcements.
Binding of Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus K-bZIP to Interferon-Responsive Factor 3 Elements Modulates Antiviral Gene Expression

ABSTRACT Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus encodes numerous regulatory proteins capable of modulating viral and cellular gene expression and affecting host cell functions. K-bZIP, a leucine zipper-containing transcription factor encoded by ORFK8, is one such protein. During infection, transcription of the ORFK8 early gene is turned on by the immediate-early replication and transcription factor activator (RTA). One described function of the K-bZIP nuclear protein is to interact with and repress RTA-mediated transactivation of viral promoters, including that of the K8 gene. In the present work, we provide evidence that the expression of K-bZIP results in the activation of the ifn-β gene. Of interest, ifn-β gene activation by K-bZIP is independent of interferon (IFN)-responsive factor 3 (IRF-3) and nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) activation. Using a DNA binding affinity assay and electromobility shift assay, we report that K-bZIP binds efficiently to the PRDIII-I region of the beta IFN (IFN-β) promoter, and, in doing so, it prevents the attachment of activated IRF-3 but not that of NF-κB or ATF2/c-Jun to the IFN-β promoter sequence. As a consequence, ifn-β gene activation in response to IFN inducers such as Sendai virus infection or expression of retinoic acid-inducible gene I, mitochondrial antiviral signaling protein, or TANK-binding kinase 1 (TBK-1) is severely impaired (>90%) by the presence of K-bZIP. K-bZIP also prevents the activation of RANTES and CXCL11, whose promoters are also regulated by IRF-3. Lysine 158 (target for SUMO conjugation), threonine 111, and serine 167 (targets for phosphorylation) mutants of K-bZIP were equally effective as wild-type K-bZIP in mediating the repression of TBK-1-activated ifn-β gene expression. Lastly, the overexpression of CREB binding protein could not reverse the K-bZIP repression of TBK-1-activated ifn-β gene expression. In all, our results indicate that K-bZIP binds directly to the PRDIII-I region of the IFN-β promoter and, as a consequence, causes a low level of ifn-β gene transcription. In doing so, K-bZIP prevents IRF-3 from binding to the IFN-β promoter and precludes the formation of the enhanceosome, which is required for maximal ifn-β gene transcription. A new role for K-bZIP as a protein involved in immune evasion is therefore uncovered.
Analyzing the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Life Cycle in Primary Keratinocytes with a Quantitative Colony‐Forming Assay

Papillomavirus genomes replicate as extrachromosomal plasmids within infected keratinocytes, requiring the regulated expression of early viral gene products to initially amplify the viral genomes and subvert cell growth checkpoints as part of a complex path to immortalization. Building on contemporary keratinocyte transfection and culture systems, the methods described in this unit form a detailed approach to analyzing critical events in the human papillomavirus (HPV) life cycle, utilizing physiologic levels of viral gene products expressed from their native promoter(s) in the natural host cells for HPV infection. A quantitative colony‐forming assay permits comparison of the capacities of various transfected HPV types and mutant HPV genomes to initially form colonies and immortalize human keratinocytes. In conjunction with additional methods, these protocols enable examination of genomic stability, viral and cellular gene expression, viral integration, and differentiation patterns influenced by HPV persistence in clonal human keratinocytes that effectively mimic early events in HPV infection. Curr. Protoc. Microbiol. 33:14B.2. 1‐14B.2. 13. © 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
A gate sizing method for glitch power reduction

Due to the difficulty in estimating dynamic power at the gate level, a quantity called power metric and its efficient calculation method are introduced in this work. Based on the proposed power metric, a heuristic gate sizing algorithm for glitch power reduction is proposed for semi-custom design. The proposed heuristic algorithm minimizes the total power metric of a circuit. According to the experimental results on 8 ISCAS85 benchmark circuits and 5 real industrial circuits, more than 30% average glitch power reduction and 15.5% average total power reduction can be achieved by means of the proposed algorithm, respectively. The achieved improvements on power and area both are more than those by means of conventional gate sizing algorithms.
Weather-indexed insurance: an elusive or achievable adaptation strategy to climate variability and change for smallholder farmers in Ethiopia

Smallholder farmers in Ethiopia largely depend on rainfed agriculture and they are highly vulnerable to climate change with few options to offset them. Adaptation to climate change requires innovative measures to be shared and adopted. This paper analyses willingness to pay (WTP) for rainfall-based index insurance by farmers in Ethiopia to shield against the adverse consequences of climate change. Rainfall data for the study area were used to compute Standardized Precipitation Indices to serve as drought monitoring tool and trigger response actions. A bivariate probit model was estimated to scrutinize factors associated with WTP. The results indicate that smallholder farmers associate positive value to indexed insurance. Those farmers in agro-ecology with moisture stress, who are better educated, worried about risk associated with weather and those who have better access to credit are more likely to pay for weather-indexed insurance. However, households that have better non-farm income and remittance are less likely to pay for the indexed insurance. The mean WTP was found to be Birr 119.90 per year for a hectare of maize-cultivated land. However, a number of challenges remain to be addressed for effective index-based insurance, which includes reliable weather data, strong marketing channel and intermediary for the insurance products. Therefore, any intervention which aims at transferring weather-based risks through rainfall index-based insurance need to consider the above features to identify the early adopters of the product.
Partial Volume correction for Image-generated Arterial Input Functions

We propose a method for Partial Volume correction and intensity recovery that models blood vessels as small cylinders of known diameter. We use a Bayesian classifier that explicitly models the effects of the point spread function on these cylinders. Although the method requires prior knowledge of the cylinder/arterial width, there is no requirement for any registration. A further advantage is that Region Of Interest (ROI) definition can be limited to only a few axial slices, thus minimizing time averaging. Furthermore, ROI selection requires only approximate placement around the target artery, encompassing both artery and background tissue, so that recovered data values are not operator-dependent. We present results for classifier performance on simulated phantom data of hot cylindrical inserts in a warm background with different contrast to noise ratios.
The Diversity Partners Project: Multi-systemic knowledge translation and business engagement strategies to improve employment of people with disabilities

BACKGROUND: Fragmented employment service systems, a lack of information about disability across sectors, and a wide disconnect between the efforts to employ people with disabilities and the needs of the business community, have presented barriers to the adoption of best practices and effective implementation of new policies designed to improve the employment rate of people with disabilities. OBJECTIVE: The goal of the Diversity Partners Project is to develop, test, and launch an innovative learning intervention to improve the relationships between employment service professionals (including disability services, workforce development and staffing organizations) and employers seeking to hire individuals with disabilities. This paper illustrates how a systematic approach to knowledge translation (KT) was used in an iterative intervention development process that engaged key stakeholders at every phase. CONCLUSION: In the disability arena, KT requires a willingness to challenge strongly held assumptions on the part of the project team, to move swiftly and repeatedly between inquiry and development, and to honestly engage with potential stakeholders who have a vested interest in the development efforts being undertaken.
Efficacy and Safety of Retreatment in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis with Previous Inadequate Response to Tumor Necrosis Factor Inhibitors: Results from the SUNRISE Trial

Objective. To assess the efficacy and safety of 1 versus 2 courses of rituximab over 48 weeks in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods. Adult patients taking methotrexate with a previous inadequate response to ≥ 1 tumor necrosis factor inhibitor received 1 course of open-label rituximab (2 × 1000 mg IV) at baseline. From Week 24, patients were randomized to receive an additional course of retreatment with rituximab or placebo. Efficacy responses at Week 48 relative to baseline were assessed. Results. Of 559 patients who received the open-label first course of rituximab, 475 patients were randomized to a second course (rituximab retreatment: n = 318, placebo retreatment: n = 157). Relative to baseline, patients who took rituximab during retreatment had significantly improved efficacy at Week 48 compared to patients who took a placebo during retreatment [American College of Rheumatology (ACR20) criteria, 54% vs 45%, p = 0.02; change in Disease Activity Score-28 mean −1.9 vs −1.5, p = 0.006]. Differences in efficacy between groups were first observed following Weeks 28–32. Worsening of most components of the ACR core set occurred in the placebo-retreated patients with relative maintenance of these measures in rituximab-retreated patients. Randomized patients who had achieved week 24 ACR responses following the first course had greater odds of losing response if retreated with placebo (odds ratios for ACR20, ACR50, ACR70: 2.09, 2.03, and 4.09, respectively). Following retreatment, the proportion of patients experiencing any adverse events (AE), serious AE, infections, and serious infections were comparable between the rituximab and placebo retreatment groups. Conclusion. Two courses of rituximab about 6 months apart resulted in improved and sustained efficacy at 1 year, compared with 1 course, with a similar safety profile.