Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Role of IKK and oscillatory NFκB kinetics in MMP‐9 gene expression and chemoresistance to 5‐fluorouracil in RKO colorectal cancer cells

Nuclear factor kappa B (NFκB) is a central participant in the metastasis and chemoresistance of colorectal cancer (CRC). However, it is not fully understood to what extent NFκB contributes to induction of the metastasis‐associated matrix metalloprotease‐9 (MMP‐9) gene and sensitivity to the commonly used chemotherapeutic 5‐fluorouracil (5‐Fu) in CRC. Using the RKO human CRC cell line and two NFκB signaling deficient RKO mutants, we investigated NFκB's role in the induction of MMP‐9 and 5‐Fu sensitivity in RKO CRC cells. NFκB plays a predominant role in MMP‐9 gene induction in RKO cells, as evidenced by the failure of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) to induce MMP‐9 in either of the NFκB signaling mutants. RKO cells exhibit a robust, oscillatory NFκB activity in response to TNFα not seen in either of the NFκB mutant cell lines, which instead demonstrate diminished, nonoscillatory NFκB activation. Analysis of TNFα‐induced phosphorylation and MMP‐9 promoter recruitment of the p65 NFκB subunit revealed a significant reduction in p65 phosphorylation as well as reduced and altered recruitment of p65 to the MMP‐9 gene promoter in the mutants compared to the parental RKO cell line. 5‐Fu only activated NFκB in the parental RKO cells through induction of IκB‐kinase (IKK) activity and increased sensitivity to 5‐Fu is observed in both NFκB mutant lines. Our results suggest that TNFα‐dependent induction of MMP‐9 gene expression is tightly regulated by oscillatory/cumulative activation of NFκB and that 5‐Fu stimulates NFκB and RKO CRC cell survival through induction of IKK activity. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Clock control architecture and ATPG for reducing pattern count in SoC designs with multiple clock domains

This paper presents a clock control architecture for designs with multiple clock domains, and a novel mix of existing ATPG techniques as well as novel ATPG enhancements. The combination of the ATPG techniques and the clock control hardware lowers the number of test patterns in a fully automated flow, while maintaining the high coverage that is required nowadays by production test. Experimental results are shown for two industrial designs.
On the Computation of Point of View

Previous work in AI story understanding has largely been used to build tools which can summarize stories and categorize them according to the events they describe (e.g., the technologies developed for the Message Understanding Conferences). These sorts of technologies are built around the assumptions that (1) events reported as facts in news stories should be "understood" as facts; (2) the style of a story, i.e., the way in which a story is told, is not of interest; and, (3) the source of a story should not influence its analysis. These assumptions are obviously unrealistic. Everyone knows that one should not believe everything in the news. But, by making these simplifying assumptions most existing story understanding systems function as gullible "readers. " The focus of my current research is to build a less gullible story understander by encoding in it a means to recognize point of view. The techniques that I am developing will be useful, not only for information retrieval tasks which demand a search for credible stories, but also in future entertainment technologies which will be capable of finding and then assembling together into a unified presentation a set of texts or video clips to tell a story from an ensemble of points of view.
TIME-BASED DISTRIBUTION.

Most industrial companies have a distribution system with many local warehouses geographically close to the customers. One or more warehouses in each country in Europe is not unusual. A change from this traditional distribution system to “Time Based Distribution”, with direct deliveries to customers all over Europe from one centralized warehouse, results in a much more competitive distribution system in terms of decreased distribution costs and increased customer service. This article presents the effects of three international Swedish companies' successful redesign of their distribution systems for the European market.
Longitudinal Analysis of Digital Bonding in Buyer–Seller Relationships

ABSTRACT Purpose: Advances in information technology (IT) have made communication and transactions in business markets more effective than ever before. In spite of the increased popularity of studying buyer–seller relationships, IT influences on business relationships remain an underresearched area. The purpose of the current research is to illustrate how a digital bond emerges in a relationship in terms of the digital bonding process and its influence on other bonds in buyer–seller relationships. Methodology: A literature review, conceptual analysis, and in-depth case studies are used. Findings: The digital bond is presented as a special type of bond that is formed in an IT-mediated coordination effort and from the interaction between companies. An antecedent of the formation of a digital bond is an existing IT system that is successfully shared in a relationship, or relationship-specific IT acquired for business activities. Research Implications: Digital bonds bind business parties through interlocking business-specific activities affecting other bonds and the business relationship. Digital bonds were also found to be drivers of the other bonds affecting structural bond strength and the business relationship. Practical Implications: Managers should engage in digital bonding behavior with selected key suppliers and customers to increase the efficiency of their firms’ in day to day processes. Illustration of successful digital bonding will be provided. Contribution of the Paper: The concept of the digital bond is introduced as a subdimension of the structural bonds (technical, time, knowledge, and economic bonds). The digital bonding process is described and its influence on the business relationship and other bonds depicted.
Work and non-work adjustments of public sector expatriates

Research on public sector expatriates is not very common, despite their increasing numbers. This is lamentable, since our much more advanced knowledge about private sector expatriates may be less applicable to their public sector counterparts. To rectify this deficiency, U.S. Department of Defense administrators assigned to U.S. embassies worldwide were targeted for this study. Results indicated that, in contrast to recent studies of private sector expatriates, stress experienced by the respondents outside work may only have a limited cross-domain effect on the level of stress in the work place. Interaction adjustment had a positive association with work adjustment but general adjustment had no relationship with the adjustment to work. Additionally, the extent of self-efficacy of the public sector expatriates was not associated with work adjustment, neither directly or indirectly. Implications of these findings are discussed in detail.
Multinational Banks and Efficiency: What Makes a Difference? An Australian Study

This study examines the factors that determine difference in efficiency of foreign bank in the host market (Australia). The impact of home market, host market and parent bank characteristics are considered within the frameworks offered by comparative advantage and new trade theories. Parametric distance functions are used to estimate the efficiency of foreign banks in Australia, and the robustness of model specification is tested using both general to specific modelling and extreme bounds analysis. It is found that following clients reduces the efficiency of profit creation. Incumbent bank's market share acts as a barrier to entry, while parent bank profits do not improve host nation efficiency. The limited global advantage hypothesis was found to be relevant for banks from the United Kingdom, while banks from the United States were generally less efficient.
Influence of Ownership Structure, Corporate Governance, and Culture on Tax Policy: Evidence from Malaysia

This study examines whether the tax avoidance strategies that reflect special tax provisions provided to industries is determined by the ownership structure and the firm’s corporate governance mechanisms including incentives given to executives. The study is conducted in Malaysia because it implemented a tax policy to gradually reduce the corporate tax rate from 40% to 25% over a period of ten years. The sample consists of 397 Malaysian public listed companies for whom data is available for 2007-2008. The study finds that government ownership, management power, and agency issue proxies’ the free cash flows and total accruals are determinants of companies using effective tax rates (ETR) as a conduit to affect their market values. Additionally, the results show that companies that mitigate the agency conflicts with lower free cash flows and total accruals are more likely to have lower ETR, and these are also good predictors of long-term tax planning. These findings are explained in the context of making Malaysia an attractive destination for investments as well corporate taxes being a reliable source of government revenue.
Examining nursing vital signs documentation workflow: barriers and opportunities in general internal medicine units.

AIMS To characterise the nursing practices of vital signs collection and documentation in a general internal medicine environment to inform strategies for improving workflow design. BACKGROUND Clinical workflow analysis is critical to identify barriers and opportunities in current processes. Analysis can guide the design and development of novel technological solutions to produce greater efficiencies and effectiveness in healthcare delivery. Research surrounding vital signs documentation workflow in general internal medicine environments has received very little attention making it difficult to compare the effectiveness of new technologies. DESIGN Qualitative ethnographic analyses and quantitative time-motion study were conducted. METHODS Workflows of 24 nurses at three hospitals in five general internal medicine environments were captured, and timeliness of vital signs assessment and documentation was measured. RESULTS Clinical assessment of vital signs was consistent, but the documentation process was highly variable within groups and between hospitals. Two themes characterised workflow barriers surrounding point-of-care documentation. First, a lack of standardised documentation methods for vital signs resulted in higher rates of transcription, increasing not only the likelihood of errors but delays in recording and accessibility of information. Second, despite advancements in electronic documentation systems, the observed system was not conducive to point-of-care documentation. Average electronic documentation was significantly longer than paper documentation. Nurses developed ad hoc workarounds that were inefficient and undermined the intent of electronic documentation. CONCLUSION We have identified barriers and opportunities to improve the efficiency of nursing vital signs documentation. Changes in technology, workflows and environmental design allow for significant improvements and deserve further exploration. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE Attention to clinical practice and environments can improve the workflow of prompt vital signs documentation and increase clinical productivity and timeliness of information for clinical decisions, as well as minimising transcription errors leading to safer patient care.
Estimation on Performance of Credit Guarantee to SMEs by ‘Treatment Effect’ Method

Credit guarantee is a system to guarantee loans so that firms can get loans from banks more easily than otherwise. We develop a model to analyze the effect of the credit guarantee where failure of firms is an explicit possibility and firms, banks, credit guarantee institutions and the government together determine credit guarantee. Two observations emerge. First, rather than using the probability of repayment as the only criteria, the expected amount of profit of firms need be considered in providing credit guarantee. Second, even though firms demand guarantee (as they believe they can make profit from loans) in reality many firms fail. It is necessary to educate firms about business cycles. There is a minimum „Treatment Effect‟ of the credit guarantee by the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund (KODIT) to firms for the period between 2001 and 2005. However, the usual estimation result is only a part of the „Treatment Effect‟ of the guarantee as made clear by the model. The benefits to firms that could have perished if not guaranteed and to the workers working for these firms are not easily measured.
Fast and Smooth Interactive Segmentation of Medical Images Using Variational Interpolation

We present a fast and interactive segmentation method for medical images that allows a smooth reconstruction of an object's surface from a set of user drawn, three-dimensional, planar contours that can be arbitrarily oriented. Our algorithm uses an interpolation based on variational implicit functions. Because variational interpolation is computationally expensive, we show how to speed up the algorithm to achieve an interactive calculation time while preserving the overall segmentation quality. The performance improvements are based on a quality preserving reduction of the number of contour points and a fast voxelization strategy for the resulting implicit function. A huge speedup is achieved by the parallelization of the algorithms, utilizing modern 64-bit multi-core CPUs. Finally, we discuss how to make the interpolation algorithm more robust to selfintersecting and reduced contours.
Information content and determinants of timeliness of financial reporting of manufacturing firms in Indonesia

One of the essential elements of adequate financial reporting is the provision of financial information that is relevant to its users in their decision-making. This financial information should be made available to users within a regulated short period after the end of the financial year. Agency theory suggests that shareholders require protection because management may not always act in the best interests of shareholders. Therefore, timely reporting is important in reducing information asymmetry between management and shareholders, and it may reduce leaks of financial information in an emerging market, such as in Indonesia‘s capital market.
Localized melting and structural changes in the SV40 origin of replication induced by T‐antigen.

Replication of simian virus 40 (SV40) DNA is dependent upon the binding of the viral T‐antigen to the SV40 origin of replication. Structural changes in the origin of replication induced by binding of T‐antigen were probed by chemical modifications of the DNA. In the presence of ATP, T‐antigen rendered two of three domains in the SV40 core origin hypersensitive to attack by either dimethyl sulfate or potassium permanganate (KMnO4). One of these domains, the early palindrome, was shown to contain an 8‐bp region of melted DNA as determined from methylation of cytosine residues and by nuclease S1 cleavage of methylated DNA. DNA melting was not dependent upon either the hydrolysis of ATP or the binding of T‐antigen to an adjacent site (site I). A second domain, the A/T element, was extensively modified by KMnO4 but no significant melting was detected. Rather, the pattern of modification indicates that T‐antigen caused a conformational change of the double‐stranded DNA in this region. These results suggest that T‐antigen, in the presence of ATP, destabilizes the SV40 origin by melting and structurally deforming two flanking regions within the core origin sequence. These DNA structural changes may provide access to other replication factors, allowing complete denaturation of the SV40 origin and the initiation of SV40 DNA replication.
Unconstrained palmprint as a smartphone biometric

In this work the use of palmprints as an alternative biometric for smartphones is investigated and its feasibility is evaluated across multiple devices using unconstrained acquisition. A novel multi-device database that covers a wide range of camera systems with data obtained in various conditions was built. This database contains palmprint images from 81 users acquired with 5 smartphones and is publicly available to the research community. Extensive experiments were carried out and their results placed into the context of existing, more constrained palmprint databases acquired with smartphones. The results outline the potential of palmprints to be used as an efficient secondary biometric deployed on consumer devices.
Trust in the Sharing Economy

Trust has been in the focus of research on business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce in the last decade. The rise of consumer-to-consumer (C2C) markets in the context of the sharing economy, however, has posed new challenges and questions regarding the dimensionality and role of trust in online transactions. We outline a conceptual research model for the role of trust with regard to the consumers’ and suppliers’ intentions to engage in this economy. Our model differentiates between three substantial targets of trust, that is, trust towards peer, platform, and product (3P). We propose and evaluate a questionnaire, which addresses these targets in their dimensions ability, integrity, and benevolence.
Empirical Evidences on Risk-Taking and Performance of Mutual Fund

This paper examines the relationship between performance and risk exposure for mutual funds. The preliminary analysis fails to support the tournament hypothesis, which predicts that poorly performing managers will increase risk exposure while outperforming managers will decrease risk exposure. Instead, we find evidence of risk reduction for extreme losers and risk increase for winning managers. Besides, the risk-taking fails to align manager interest with shareholder interest since the returns from the risk enhancement by winners and the risk reduction by losers is relatively worse than those with contradictory strategies. Overall, the competition among fund managers appears to affect management risk choice, and in turn has an effect on future performance. However, the effect of shifting risk on fund performance and the approach of altering portfolio risk vary with fund style and prior performance.
Effects of intermittent exercise and use of home exercise equipment on adherence, weight loss, and fitness in overweight women: a randomized trial.

CONTEXT Enhancing participation in long-term exercise may translate into improved long-term weight loss in overweight adults. OBJECTIVES To compare the effects of intermittent with traditional continuous exercise on weight loss, adherence, and fitness, and to examine the effect of combining intermittent exercise with that using home exercise equipment. DESIGN Randomized trial from September 1996 through September 1998. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS A total of 148 sedentary, overweight (mean [SD] body mass index, 32.8 [4.0] kg/m2) women (mean [SD] age, 36.7 [5.6] years) in a university-based weight control program. INTERVENTIONS Eighteen-month behavioral weight control program with 3 groups: long-bout exercise (LB), multiple short-bout exercise (SB), or multiple short-bout exercise with home exercise equipment (SBEQ) using a treadmill. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Body weight, body composition, cardiorespiratory fitness, and exercise adherence. RESULTS Of 148 subjects, 115 (78%) completed the 18-month program. At 18 months, mean (SD) weight loss was significantly greater in subjects in the SBEQ group compared with subjects in the SB group (-7.4 [7.8] kg vs -3.7 [6.6] kg; P<.05). Mean (SD) weight loss for subjects in the LB group (-5.8 [7.1] kg) was not significantly different than for subjects in the SB or SBEQ groups. Subjects in the SBEQ group maintained a higher level of exercise than subjects in both the SB and LB groups (P<.05) at 13 to 18 months of treatment. All groups showed an increase in cardiorespiratory fitness from baseline to 18 months, with no difference between groups. Mean (SD) weight loss at 18 months was significantly greater in individuals exercising more than 200 min/wk throughout the intervention (-13.1 [8.0] kg) compared with individuals exercising 150 to 200 min/wk (-8.5 [5.8] kg) or less than 150 min/wk (-3.5 [6.5] kg) (P<.05). CONCLUSIONS Compared with the LB group, subjects in the SB group did not experience improved long-term weight loss, exercise participation, or cardiorespiratory fitness. Access to home exercise equipment facilitated the maintenance of SB, which may improve long-term weight loss. A dose-response relationship exists between amount of exercise and long-term weight loss in overweight adult women.
Evaluating brand extensions, fit perceptions and post-extension brand image: does size matter?

Abstract This study contributes to the scant literature considering brand extensions in a competitive context and investigates whether the correlation between consumers’ beliefs about a brand’s attributes and the number of its buyers described in previous research occurs with regard to fit perceptions of brand extensions, extension evaluation and post-extension brand image. In a scenario experiment with real brands and fictitious extensions, members of a commercial UK panel evaluated high and low-fit extensions and post-extension brand images of competing brands of pet food. The relative size of each brand in terms of the number of its buyers was used as a benchmark in the analysis. For all extensions, results reveal a positive correlation between post-extension brand images, extension evaluations, fit perceptions and the number of brand buyers. Results have implications for interpreting consumers’ perceptions of fit, evaluation of extensions and post-extension brand images of competing brands.
Prediction for Inbound Tourism Flow of Chongqing Based on Grey Prediction Model

Grey prediction model has high accuracy in studying prediction for inbound tourism flow.According to the process of establishing grey prediction model and the method of accuracy test,this paper analyzed inbound tourism flow in Chongqing during the decade between 1997 and 2007,and selected the inbound tourism flow in Chongqing during the period from 2004 to 2007 as the original data,then established the GM(1,1)of inbound tourism flow in Chongqing and time.The model was reliable after checking up,according to this model,the inbound tourism flow in Chongqing between 2008 and 2012 were calculated,it shows that the inbound tourism flow in Chongqing will be increased quickly,and will be expected to exceed 1 million person-times in 2009.
A COMPARISON OF THE ELECTRICITY DISTRIBUTION INVESTMENT STRATEGIES

The long-term development of the distribution networks and investment strategies is topical all over the world. Network owners and operators are facing the challenge of aging infrastructure and a need for massive reinvestments. Expectations for better reliability regardless of the state of operating (normal situation or a major event) have increased. From a business point of view, there are incentives for investments, by which the total network costs (investment costs, operational costs, and outage costs) can be minimized in the long run. Especially the role of outage costs has gained more weight on investment decisions than before. Different investments have different effects on distribution reliability. The new solutions such as low-cost primary substations, roadside building of networks, 1000 V network technology, pole-mounted switchgears etc. provide a variety of methods to increase reliability rapidly and by low costs. Nevertheless, full-scale underground cabling is only way to be prepared for major events (big storms). In this paper, different reinvestment strategies in rural area are studied.