Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differential MS2 Interaction with Food Contact Surfaces Determined by Atomic Force Microscopy and Virus Recovery

ABSTRACT Enteric viruses are recognized as major etiologies of U.S. foodborne infections. These viruses are easily transmitted via food contact surfaces. Understanding virus interactions with surfaces may facilitate the development of improved means for their removal, thus reducing transmission. Using MS2 coliphage as a virus surrogate, the strength of virus adhesion to common food processing and preparation surfaces of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and glass was assessed by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and virus recovery assays. The interaction forces of MS2 with various surfaces were measured from adhesion peaks in force-distance curves registered using a spherical bead probe preconjugated with MS2 particles. MS2 in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) demonstrated approximately 5 times less adhesion force to glass (0.54 nN) than to PVC (2.87 nN) (P < 0.0001). This was consistent with the virus recovery data, which showed 1.4-fold fewer virus PFU recovered from PVC than from glass after identical inoculations and 24 h of cold storage. The difference in adhesion was ascribed to both intrinsic chemical characteristics and the substrate surface porosity (smooth glass versus porous PVC). Incorporating a surfactant micellar solution of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) into the PBS reduced the adhesion force for PVC (∼0 nN) and consistently increased virus recovery by 19%. With direct and indirect evidence of virus adhesion, this study illustrated a two-way assessment of virus adhesion for the initial evaluation of potential means to mitigate virus adhesion to food contact surfaces. IMPORTANCE The spread of foodborne viruses is likely associated with their adhesive nature. Virus attachment on food contact surfaces has been evaluated by quantitating virus recoveries from inoculated surfaces. This study aimed to evaluate the microenvironment in which nanometer-sized viruses interact with food contact surfaces and to compare the virus adhesion differences using AFM. The virus surrogate MS2 demonstrated less adhesion force to glass than to PVC via AFM, with the force-contributing factors including the intrinsic nature and the topography of the contact surfaces. This adhesion finding is consistent with the virus recoveries, which were determined indirectly. Greater numbers of viruses were recovered from glass than from PVC, after application at the same levels. The stronger MS2 adhesion onto PVC could be interrupted by incorporating a surfactant during the interaction between the virus and the contact surface. This study increases our understanding of the virus adhesion microenvironment and indicates ways to mitigate virus adhesion onto contact surfaces.
Co-stimulatory signaling determines tumor antigen sensitivity and persistence of CAR T cells targeting PSCA+ metastatic prostate cancer

ABSTRACT Advancing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-engineered adoptive T cells for the treatment of solid cancers is a major focus in the field of immunotherapy, given impressive recent clinical responses in hematological malignancies. Prostate cancer may be amenable to T cell-based immunotherapy since several tumor antigens, including prostate stem-cell antigen (PSCA), are widely over-expressed in metastatic disease. While antigen selectivity of CARs for solid cancers is crucial, it is problematic due to the absence of truly restricted tumor antigen expression and potential safety concerns with “on-target off-tumor” activity. Here, we show that the intracellular co-stimulatory signaling domain can determine a CAR's sensitivity for tumor antigen expression. A 4-1BB intracellular co-stimulatory signaling domain in PSCA-CARs confers improved selectivity for higher tumor antigen density, reduced T cell exhaustion phenotype, and equivalent tumor killing ability compared to PSCA-CARs containing the CD28 co-stimulatory signaling domain. PSCA-CARs exhibit robust in vivo anti-tumor activity in patient-derived bone-metastatic prostate cancer xenograft models, and 4-1BB-containing CARs show superior T cell persistence and control of disease compared with CD28-containing CARs. Our study demonstrates the importance of co-stimulation in defining an optimal CAR T cell, and also highlights the significance of clinically relevant models in developing solid cancer CAR T cell therapies.
Belief assessment: an underdeveloped phase of probability elicitation

A cognitive analysis of subjective probability is applied to the evaluation of techniques used by decision analysts for eliciting probabilities from experts. The construction of a subjective probability requires both the formation of a belief and the assessment of a probability that qualifies the belief. The former process involves judgment and reasoning; the latter is purely judgmental. Subjective probabilities have traditionally been portrayed and studied as arising from judgment. Consequently, belief assessment procedures have been particularly underdeveloped. Procedures currently used by analysts to and belief assessment are classified and evaluated. Although such procedures facilitate the communication of beliefs and offer important guidance for constructing probabilities, additional prescriptive development is possible. It is argued that significant improvements in assessment practice can be realized by providing better support for the reasoning employed by experts in belief assessment. Opportunities for descriptive and prescriptive research in belief assessment are identified.
Vacuolating cytotoxin and variants in Atg16L1 that disrupt autophagy promote Helicobacter pylori infection in humans.

BACKGROUND & AIMS The Helicobacter pylori toxin vacuolating cytotoxin (VacA) promotes gastric colonization, and its presence (VacA(+)) is associated with more-severe disease. The exact mechanisms by which VacA contributes to infection are unclear. We previously found that limited exposure to VacA induces autophagy of gastric cells, which eliminates the toxin; we investigated whether autophagy serves as a defense mechanism against H pylori infection. METHODS We investigated the effect of VacA on autophagy in human gastric epithelial cells and primary gastric cells from mice. Expression of p62, a marker of autophagy, was also assessed in gastric tissues from patients infected with toxigenic (VacA(+)) or nontoxigenic strains. We analyzed the effect of VacA on autophagy in peripheral blood monocytes obtained from subjects with different genotypes of ATG16L1, which regulates autophagy. We performed genotyping for ATG16L1 in 2 cohorts of infected and uninfected subjects. RESULTS Prolonged exposure of human gastric epithelial cells and mouse gastric cells to VacA disrupted induction of autophagy in response to the toxin, because the cells lacked cathepsin D in autophagosomes. Loss of autophagy resulted in the accumulation of p62 and reactive oxygen species. Gastric biopsy samples from patients infected with VacA(+), but not nontoxigenic strains of H pylori, had increased levels of p62. Peripheral blood monocytes isolated from individuals with polymorphisms in ATG16L1 that increase susceptibility to Crohn's disease had reduced induction of autophagy in response to VacA(+) compared to cells from individuals that did not have these polymorphisms. The presence of the ATG16L1 Crohn's disease risk variant increased susceptibility to H pylori infection in 2 separate cohorts. CONCLUSIONS Autophagy protects against infection with H pylori; the toxin VacA disrupts autophagy to promote infection, which could contribute to inflammation and eventual carcinogenesis.
Effect of driver distraction and low alcohol concentrations on useful field of view and frequency‐doubling technology perimetry

Purpose: To investigate the effects of a mental psychometric task that simulates the distraction effect of a hands‐free mobile phone and of low alcohol concentrations (0.3–0.5 g/l) on two tests: the useful field of view (UFOV) and frequency‐doubling technology (FDT) perimetry.
Gone But Not Forgotten: Labor Flows, Knowledge Spillovers, and Enduring Social Capital

It is well known that patent citations occur disproportionately between patents issued to inventors living in the same location, which has been taken as evidence of geographically localized knowledge spillovers. In this study, we find that patent citations also occur disproportionately often in locations where the cited inventor was living prior to being issued the patent in question, which we interpret as evidence of a significant role played by social capital in promoting knowledge spillovers. We first develop a model of purposeful investments in social capital by co-located inventors that incorporates the effect of expected mobility. Using patent and citation data, we then test two hypotheses motivated by the model. First, we find strong evidence in support of the enduring social capital hypothesis; social ties that facilitate knowledge transfer persist even after formerly co-located individuals are separated. Consistent with the model, we find that individuals with higher ex ante mobility are somewhat less likely to invest in location-specific social relationships, but the pattern of spillovers implied by patent citations is consistent with them investing in those social relationships that survive subsequent geographic separation. Second, we find strong evidence that the social ties associated with co-location are particularly important for facilitating knowledge spillovers across technology fields or communities of practice where alternative mechanisms for transferring knowledge are more costly.
What are the Reliably Important Determinants of Capital Structure in China?

Existing studies disagree over the basic determinants of capital structure in Chinese firms. We identify profitability, industry leverage, asset growth, tangibility, firm size, state control, and the largest shareholding as reliable core factors explaining book leverage. Compared with evidence from the United States and other countries, we identify three new core factors, and observe that the relative importance of four common core factors for Chinese firms is diverse. In particular, the state-control dummy is negatively associated with book leverage, contrary to findings in certain previous studies. Additional tests indicate that such a negative effect of state-control derives primarily from easier access to equity financing.
Introduction to Special Issue: Government Involvement in Residential Mortgage Markets

type="main"> The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's Center for Real Estate Analytics and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte's Center for Real Estate jointly sponsored a research conference held in Charlotte on December 5–6, 2013. The conference theme was “Government Involvement in Residential Mortgage Markets” and included papers and discussions from an array of economists employed in academia, government, think tanks and the private sector. This special issue of Real Estate Economics is composed of seven of the ten papers presented at the conference. The research is concentrated on the recent U.S. housing boom and bust, with a particular focus on the role of government policy.
Another Look at the Equity Risk Premium Puzzle

Abstract The model of Mehra and Prescott (1985, J. Econometrics, 22, 145-161) implies that reasonable coefficients of risk-aversion of economic agents cannot explain the equity risk premium generated by financial markets. This discrepancy is hitherto regarded as a major financial puzzle. We propose an alternative model to explain the equity premium. For normally distributed returns and for returns far away from normality (but still light tailed), realistic equity risk premia do not imply puzzlingly high risk aversions. Following our approach, the ‘equity premium puzzle’ does not exist. We also consider fat-tailed return distributions and show that Pareto tails are incompatible with constant relative risk aversion.
Design of flyback echo‐planar readout gradients for magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging

The spatial resolution of conventional magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging‐(MRSI) is typically coarse, mainly due to SNR limitations. The increased signal available with higher field scanners and new array coils now permits higher spatial resolution, but conventional chemical shift imaging (phase encoding) limits the spatial coverage possible in a patient‐acceptable acquisition time. The “flyback” echo‐planar trajectory is particularly insensitive to errors and provides data that are simple to process. In this study, high‐efficiency gradient waveforms for flyback echo‐planar MRSI were designed and implemented. Normal volunteer studies at 3 T showed the feasibility of acquiring high spatial resolution with large coverage in a short scan time (2048 voxels in 2.3 min and 4096 voxels in 8.5 min). The trajectories were insensitive to errors in timing and require only a modest (10 to 30%) penalty in SNR relative to conventional phase encoding using the same acquisition time. Magn Reson Med, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Environmental policy and economies of scope in facility-level environmental practices

In order to abate pollution, manufacturing facilities can either change their production processes (CPP) or introduce end-of-pipe technologies (EOP). The decision to undertake CPP rather than EOP is a reflection of the existence of economies of scope between production of the facility’s conventional output and abatement of pollution. While this is determined by sectoral technological opportunities, facility size and other factors, environmental management practices, and public policy also play a role. Our results suggest that flexible instruments are more likely to result in CPP. We also provide insights on the role of environmental management, with the mainstreaming of environmental management within the firm leading to more integrated abatement strategies.
IL‐6 receptor antagonist as adjunctive therapy with clotting factor replacement to protect against bleeding‐induced arthropathy in hemophilia

The most common morbidity that results from hemophilia is bleeding‐induced hemophilic arthropathy (HA), which once established may not be interrupted completely even by prophylactic clotting factor replacement. Specific therapies to oppose inflammatory cytokines, including Interleukin 6 (IL‐6) receptor antagonists, have become important in the management of inflammatory arthritides.
Interest Rates, Leverage, and Investor Rationality

An important maintained hypothesis in financial economics states that the average interest rate on a firm's debt is positively related to its leverage. This hypothesis has a long history going back at least to the work of Kalecki [4] where it was used to derive a determinate size for the competitive firm when the production function is homogeneous of degree one. The upward sloping interest rate-leverage relationship has also played an important role in the theory of finance. In this connection, it is somewhat interesting to find both Modigliani-Miller [5] and their many critics in complete agreement on the nature of this relationship. In particular, their statement on this subject conveys the impression that this relationship is governed by an unalterable law when they write: “Economic theory and market experience both suggest that the yields demanded by lenders tend to increase with the debt-equity ratio of the borrowing firm” [5, p. 273].
Do regions matter? An integrated institutional and semiglobalization perspective on the internationalization of MNEs

Traditional research suggests a relationship between country-level institutions and the location choices of MNEs. However, more recent theory suggests MNEs also focus on regions (semiglobalization). Therefore, this study examines institutional effects in the context of semiglobalization by considering the influences of three formal institutions (i.e., regulatory control, political democracy, capital investments) of countries and geographic regions on MNEs' location choices of internationalization. We use a sample of Japanese MNEs operating in 45 countries within eight regions. The results show that their degree of internationalization into a country is influenced by both country and regional institutional environments. Additionally, a semiglobalization perspective provides better explanatory power than does the country-level perspective. These results present a new perspective on how MNEs consider institutional environments in their international strategy. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Firm Visibility via Group Presentations

Investor relation (IR) is a function that should make a difference to listed companies' communication process to the markets. It is also the strategic corporate activity that promotes the investment case of a listed company and puts its listed stock 'on the radar screen' of the analysts and the fund managers. But which corporate communication tool should the listed companies utilise to inform the market? What can the top management and especially the in-house Investor Relations Officer (IRO) do to increase company visibility? One option is to participate in and communicate through group presentations. This paper investigates the Greek listed firms' efforts towards attaining visibility via group presentations. Visibility should result in better stock liquidity and increased stock price.
Spatial Mixture Models Based on Exponential Family Conditional Distributions

Spatial statistical models are applied in many problems for which dependence in observed random variables is not easily explained by a direct scientific mechanism. In such situations there may be a latent spatial process that acts to produce the observed spatial pattern. Scientific interest often centers on the latent process and the degree of spatial dependence that characterizes it. Such latent processes may be thought of as spatial mixing distributions. We present methods for the specification of flexible joint distributions to model spatial processes through multi-parameter exponential family conditional distributions. One approach to the analysis of these models is Monte Carlo maximum likelihood, and an approach based on independence pseudomodels is presented for formulating importance sampling distributions that allow such an analysis. The methods developed are applied to a problem of forest-health monitoring, where the numbers of affected trees in spatial field plots are modeled using a spatial beta-binomial mixture.
Chronic Disease and Labour Force Participation in Australia: an endogenous multivariate probit analysis of clinical prevalence data

Reducing chronic disease has been identified as a priority for both health and labour force productivity improvement. The study estimated the influence of clinically diagnosed diabetes and cardiovascular disease on labour supply in men and women aged over 25 taking account of the observed and unobserved factors that influence both the risk of these chronic diseases and labour force participation. The results show that diabetes and cardiovascular disease together have a strong impact on labour market outcomes particularly for males, and that obesity, insufficient exercise, hypertension, lipid abnormality, smoking and parental diabetes all have a significant indirect effect on labour force participation.
ON INFORMATION, PRIORS, ECONOMETRICS, AND ECONOMIC MODELING

This paper attempts to reconcile all inferentia1 methods which by maximizing a criterion functiona1 produce non- informative and informative priors. In particular, Good's (1968) Minimax Evidence Priors, MEP, Zellner's (1971) Maximal Data Information Priors, MDIP, and Bernardo's (1979) Reference Priors, RP, are seen as special cases of maximizing a more general criterion functional. In a unifying approach Good-Bernardo-Zellner priors are introduced and applied to a number of Bayesian inference procedures which are useful in economic research, such as the Kalman Filter and the Normal Linear Model. We al so use the Good- Bemardo-Zellner distributions in several economic models
Research on blind source separation and blind beamforming

This paper presents a novel blind separation method to determine the order of the separated signals in communication signal processing. Firstly, the number of sources is estimated, then the received signals are separated and the direction-of-arrival (DOA) is obtained simultaneously, finally the order of the separated signals is determined. Experimental results are discussed to illustrate the proposed method and show that it not only can determine the order of the separated communication signals correctly but also has the advantage of simplicity and better performance on source separation.
Specificity and sensitivity of claims-based algorithms for identifying members of Medicare+Choice health plans that have chronic medical conditions.

OBJECTIVE To examine the effects of varying diagnostic and pharmaceutical criteria on the performance of claims-based algorithms for identifying beneficiaries with hypertension, heart failure, chronic lung disease, arthritis, glaucoma, and diabetes. STUDY SETTING Secondary 1999-2000 data from two Medicare+Choice health plans. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective analysis of algorithm specificity and sensitivity. DATA COLLECTION Physician, facility, and pharmacy claims data were extracted from electronic records for a sample of 3,633 continuously enrolled beneficiaries who responded to an independent survey that included questions about chronic diseases. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Compared to an algorithm that required a single medical claim in a one-year period that listed the diagnosis, either requiring that the diagnosis be listed on two separate claims or that the diagnosis to be listed on one claim for a face-to-face encounter with a health care provider significantly increased specificity for the conditions studied by 0.03 to 0.11. Specificity of algorithms was significantly improved by 0.03 to 0.17 when both a medical claim with a diagnosis and a pharmacy claim for a medication commonly used to treat the condition were required. Sensitivity improved significantly by 0.01 to 0.20 when the algorithm relied on a medical claim with a diagnosis or a pharmacy claim, and by 0.05 to 0.17 when two years rather than one year of claims data were analyzed. Algorithms that had specificity more than 0.95 were found for all six conditions. Sensitivity above 0.90 was not achieved all conditions. CONCLUSIONS Varying claims criteria improved the performance of case-finding algorithms for six chronic conditions. Highly specific, and sometimes sensitive, algorithms for identifying members of health plans with several chronic conditions can be developed using claims data.
Effect of nitric oxide on single skeletal muscle fibres from the mouse

1 Single skeletal muscle fibres from a mouse foot muscle were used to investigate the effects of nitric oxide on contractile function. 2 We measured force production and myoplasmic free Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) in single fibres exposed to the nitric oxide donors S‐nitroso‐N‐acetylcysteine (SNAC) and nitroprusside. 3 The nitric oxide donors reduced myofibrillar Ca2+ sensitivity, whereas [Ca2+]i transients were increased during submaximal tetani. Force was largely unchanged. SNAC did not change maximum shortening velocity, the rate of force redevelopment, or force production at saturating [Ca2+]i. 4 The guanylyl cyclase inhibitor LY83583 increased tetanic [Ca2+]i but had no effect on Ca2+ sensitivity. LY83583 did not prevent the decrease in myofibrillar Ca2+ sensitivity in response to SNAC. The oxidizer sodium nitrite increased tetanic [Ca2+]i and decreased myofibrillar Ca2+ sensitivity. 5 We conclude that under our experimental conditions nitric oxide impairs Ca2+ activation of the actin filaments which results in decreased myofibrillar Ca2+ sensitivity.