Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Entire Photodamaged Chloroplasts Are Transported to the Central Vacuole by Autophagy[OPEN]

An autophagy process termed chlorophagy is induced by photodamage and serves to eliminate entire damaged chloroplasts via transport to the vacuole in Arabidopsis leaves. Turnover of dysfunctional organelles is vital to maintain homeostasis in eukaryotic cells. As photosynthetic organelles, plant chloroplasts can suffer sunlight-induced damage. However, the process for turnover of entire damaged chloroplasts remains unclear. Here, we demonstrate that autophagy is responsible for the elimination of sunlight-damaged, collapsed chloroplasts in Arabidopsis thaliana. We found that vacuolar transport of entire chloroplasts, termed chlorophagy, was induced by UV-B damage to the chloroplast apparatus. This transport did not occur in autophagy-defective atg mutants, which exhibited UV-B-sensitive phenotypes and accumulated collapsed chloroplasts. Use of a fluorescent protein marker of the autophagosomal membrane allowed us to image autophagosome-mediated transport of entire chloroplasts to the central vacuole. In contrast to sugar starvation, which preferentially induced distinct type of chloroplast-targeted autophagy that transports a part of stroma via the Rubisco-containing body (RCB) pathway, photooxidative damage induced chlorophagy without prior activation of RCB production. We further showed that chlorophagy is induced by chloroplast damage caused by either artificial visible light or natural sunlight. Thus, this report establishes that an autophagic process eliminates entire chloroplasts in response to light-induced damage.
Nicotine Prevents MPTP-induced Dopaminergic Neurodegeneration

Epidemiological studies of Parkinson disease (PD) have found an inverse correlation between cigarette smoking and the risk of developing PD, which suggests that nicotine has a protective effect. Results from animal models of PD are conflicting, raising questions about a protective potential of nicotine. In this study, mice were pretreated with low-dose nicotine before MPTP administration, and examined to determine a neuroprotective potential of nicotine. The schedule of nicotine administration was selected to simulate the future human trials using this putative neuroprotective agent. Male C57Bl/6 mice were pretreated with nicotine for 5 days (0.2 mg/kg/d, i.p.). After the 5-day-pretreatment with nicotine only, nicotine and MPTP (30 mg/kg/d, i.p.) were co-administered for 1 to 5 consecutive days. The total dose of nicotine, 0.2 mg/kg/d for 6 to 10 days, is the lowest one ever studied. Tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) immunohistochemical staining of the nigral sections was performed. Over the experimental period, there was a significant reduction in the TH-positive cells. In the nicotine-MPTP group, the degree of TH neuron depletion was reduced at days 4 and 5 of co-administration. These findings suggest that the nicotinic neurotransmission on the dopaminergic neurons are promising targets for neuroprotective therapy of PD.
Profitability Goals, Control Goals, and the R&D Investment Decisions of Family and Nonfamily Firms

R&D investments can help build sustainable competitive advantages and improve firm performance as well as foster industry transformations and economic growth. Nevertheless, managers also acknowledge the difficulties associated with managing R&D and the low chances of success of innovation programs. For this reason, researchers have long been interested in understanding how managers make R&D investment decisions and, more specifically, identifying the conditions under which managers are most likely to increase or decrease R&D investments. Research grounded in the behavioral theory of the firm suggests that a primary driver of R&D investment decisions is profitability: when profitability goals have not been met, managers are more likely to initiate a problemistic search through increasing R&D investments. While emphasizing profitability goals and their relationship with R&D investments, prior research largely downplays the role of goals beyond profitability that exist in a significant number of firms (family firms) that are owned and managed by family members whose primary concern is preserving their control over the organization. Research indicates that these family-centered non-economic goals lead family managers to minimize R&D investments and that the coexistence of multiple goals produces highly variable R&D investment behavior in family firms. Yet, how family-centered goals for control and profitability goals enter decision-making in family firms is not fully understood nor has any empirical study directly examined how these two apparently incompatible classes of goals jointly affect R&D investment variations in family firms. In this study, we propose that family managers form distinctive reference points that capture supplier bargaining power and are used to evaluate the degree of external obstruction to their managerial control. Accordingly, we hypothesize that family managers use reference points for profitability and for control jointly when making R&D investment decisions. The empirical analysis of panel data on 431 private Spanish manufacturing firms observed over the period 2000-2006 shows that the importance of profitability and control goals follows a sequential logic in family firms, such that family firms react more strongly to increasing supplier bargaining power when their profitability reference points have been reached. This study extends current understanding of the distinctive organizational processes engendered by family management in business organizations leading to new perspectives and research opportunities at the intersection of the innovation management and family business literatures.
Modelling the Mediation Effect of Service Recovery on the relationship between Customer complaints and Customer loyalty in Retail banking Industry

In the last three decades, ample empirical studies have reported the significant association between customer satisfaction, customer complaints and customer loyalty in retail banking. However, the findings of such studies are far from conclusive. Initially, interviews and extensive literature review were undertaken to understand the linkages among the constructs. Anecdotal and empirical evidence indicate direct associations between the independent, mediating and the dependent variables. But, the intervening effect of service recovery is neglected by past studies. Thus, this conceptual paper proposes the mediation effect of service recovery on the relationship between customer complaints and customer loyalty in retail bankin. The insights provided by this paper can assist bank managers in addressing the issues of customer switching and loyalty erosion that embattle the banking industry.
Enhanced Priority Based Resource Allocation in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a concept which allows its users to work with a pay-as-you-go model. Cloud users use services on the cloud and cloud providers provide their services to the users, on demand. This request-response coupling needs to be managed, using resource allocation strategies, as there can be fluctuating request volume as well as unpredictable request arrival patterns. Therefore, it is very important to dynamically allocate resources, as it is not predictable when a cloud user logs in or logs out of the cloud environment. The priority based resource allocation approaches provide flexibility to reorder the requests and dynamicity for allocating resources, even when there is limited number of resources available. This paper proposes a priority based resource allocation method, for handling a situation, where two or more requests at a particular instance of time have same priority. The proposed method has been implemented and simulation results have shown that the resources can be allocated to the same priority requests, by keeping in view the system load needed by the requests and the system load available to execute those requests.
Safety Perception of Turkish and European Passengers in Turkish Airports: A Cross-National Comparison

This research primarily aimed to illustrate the national differences of passengers regarding their perceptions ofTurkish airport safety. Secondly, airport safety perceptions by some other consumer characteristics such asdemographics, flight characteristics, fairness perception and satisfaction from airport services were tried to berevealed.The research had a between-groups comparison design of data obtained in a one time measurement of the field.The predictions were tested in a sample of 911 Turkish and, 595 European passengers in Turkish airports. Datacollecting method used in the study was 7-point Likert type self-report questionnaire filled by the respondents onvoluntary basis in a categorical and random sampling. Independent sample t-tests, one-way Analysis of VarianceANOVA were used to reveal group differences in safety perceptions by nationalities and some other consumer characteristics.Significant differences among nationalities were found regarding safety perceptions. Meaningful differenceswere found by flight frequency, fairness perception and satisfaction degree from the services at airport. Studygains importance as being of the first time investigation of the differences between European and Turkishpassengers about Turkish airports regarding safety perception.
Protective Effects of Riluzole on Dopamine Neurons

Abstract: Riluzole is neuroprotective in patients with amyotrophiclateral sclerosis and may also protect dopamine (DA) neurons in Parkinson'sdisease. We examined the neuroprotective potential of riluzole on DA neuronsusing primary rat mesencephalic cultures and human dopaminergic neuroblastomaSH‐SY5Y cells. Riluzole (up to 10 μM) alone affected neither thesurvival of DA neurons in primary cultures nor the growth of SH‐SY5Y cellsafter up to 72 h. Riluzole (1‐10 μM) dose‐dependently reduced DAcell loss caused by exposure to MPP+ in both types of cultures.These protective effects were accompanied by a dose‐dependent decrease ofintracellular ATP depletion caused by MPP+ (30‐300 μM)in SH‐SY5Y cells without affecting intracellular net NADH content, suggestinga reduction of cellular ATP consumption rather than normalization ofmitochondrial ATP production. Riluzole (1‐10 μM) also attenuatedoxidative injury in both cell types induced by exposure to L‐DOPA and6‐hydroxydopamine, respectively. Consistent with its antioxidative effects,riluzole reduced lipid peroxidation induced by Fe3+ and L‐DOPA inprimary mesencephalic cultures. Riluzole (10 μM) did not alterhigh‐affinity uptake of either DA or MPP+. However, in the samecell systems, riluzole induced neuronal and glial cell death withconcentrations higher than those needed for maximal protective effects(≥100 μM). These data demonstrate that riluzole has protectiveeffects on DA neurons in vitro against neuronal injuries induced by (a)impairment of cellular energy metabolism and/or (b) oxidative stress. Theseresults provide further impetus to explore the neuroprotective potential ofriluzole in Parkinson's disease.
Protein 4.1R Exon 16 3′ Splice Site Activation Requires Coordination among TIA1, Pcbp1, and RBM39 during Terminal Erythropoiesis

ABSTRACT Exon 16 of protein 4.1R encodes a spectrin/actin-binding peptide critical for erythrocyte membrane stability. Its expression during erythroid differentiation is regulated by alternative pre-mRNA splicing. A UUUUCCCCCC motif situated between the branch point and the 3′ splice site is crucial for inclusion. We show that the UUUU region and the last three C residues in this motif are necessary for the binding of splicing factors TIA1 and Pcbp1 and that these proteins appear to act in a collaborative manner to enhance exon 16 inclusion. This element also activates an internal exon when placed in a corresponding intronic position in a heterologous reporter. The impact of these two factors is further enhanced by high levels of RBM39, whose expression rises during erythroid differentiation as exon 16 inclusion increases. TIA1 and Pcbp1 associate in a complex containing RBM39, which interacts with U2AF65 and SF3b155 and promotes U2 snRNP recruitment to the branch point. Our results provide a mechanism for exon 16 3′ splice site activation in which a coordinated effort among TIA1, Pcbp1, and RBM39 stabilizes or increases U2 snRNP recruitment, enhances spliceosome A complex formation, and facilitates exon definition through RBM39-mediated splicing regulation.
Hybrid classifier and region-dependent integrated features for detection of diabetic retinopathy

One of the major eye diseases called Diabetic retinopathy (DR), which causes loss of sight if it is not noticed in the early hours. In order to keep the patient’s vision, the early detection and periodic screening of DR plays an important role in eye diagnosis by examining the deformity in retinal fundus images. During the early detection of DR, ophthalmologists identify the lesions called microaneurysms that emerge as the first symptom of the disease. The various test methods availability and the handlings of all these test methods for detection of DR are not possible in rural areas. The automatic DR detection system offers the potential to be used in large-scale screening programs. This paper presents a hybrid classifier and region-dependent integrated features for detection of DR automatically. In the proposed hybrid classifier, holoentropy enabled decision tree is combined with a feed forward neural network using the proposed score level fusion method. The performance is evaluated and compared with existing classification algorithms using sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy. Two different databases such as DIARETDB0 and DIARETDB1 are utilized for the experimentation. From the experimental results, proposed technique obtained the accuracy of 98.70%, which is better as compared with existing algorithms.
Asset Liability Management for Pension Funds: A Multistage Chance Constrained Programming Approach

markdownabstract__Abstract__ This thesis presents a scenario based optimisation model to analyze the investment policy and funding policy for pension funds, taking into account the development of the liabilities in conjunction with the economic environment. Such a policy will be referred to as an asset liability management (ALM) policy. The model has been developed to compute dynamic ALM policies that: - guarantee an acceptably small probability of underfunding, - guarantee sufficiently stable future contributions, -minimise the present value of expected future contributions by the plan sponsors.
Ex Vivo Evaluation of a Prototype Submucosal Biopsy Forceps for the Diagnosis of Gastric Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors

Gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) account for approximately 2% of gastric cancers and can be challenging to diagnose due to the difficulty sampling tissue from these lesions. Current biopsy methods are inadequate for determining the mitotic index, a major prognostic factor of these tumors. We sought to evaluate the ability of a prototype submucosal biopsy forceps to make a histologic diagnosis and mitotic index determination in cases of resected gastric GISTs. After obtaining informed consent and surgical resection of three gastric GISTs, an investigational submucosal biopsy forceps and sheath was passed under direct visualization into the central portion of the tumors (in the ex vivo setting) and biopsies were obtained. The tumor was then processed for standard histology. A gastrointestinal pathologist, blinded to the mitotic index of the full specimen, evaluated the research biopsies. The results from the submucosal forceps biopsies were then compared with the standard histology results. n all 3 cases, the submucosal forceps biopsies confirmed the diagnosis of a GIST. In two out of three cases, the submucosal forceps biopsies accurately classified the risk for progressive disease (based on the mitotic index) when compared to standard histology. In one case, the research biopsy mitotic index would have resulted in an underestimation of tumor risk (biopsies categorized the lesion as “very low” rather than “moderate” risk).
DFT calculations on entire proteins for free energies of binding : application to a model polar binding site

In drug optimisation calculations, the Molecular Mechanics Poisson-Boltzmann Surface Area (MM-PBSA) method can be used to compute free energies of binding of ligands to proteins. The method involves the evaluation of the energy of configurations in an implicit solvent model. One source of errors is the force field used, which can potentially lead to large errors due to the restrictions in accuracy imposed by its empirical nature. To assess the effect of the force field on the calculation of binding energies, in this paper we use large-scale Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations as an alternative method to evaluate the energies of the configurations in a “QM-PBSA” approach. Our DFT calculations are performed with a near-complete basis set and a minimal parameter implicit solvent model, within the self-consistent calculation, using the ONETEP program on protein-ligand complexes containing more than 2600 atoms. We apply this approach to the T4-lysozyme double mutant L99A/M102Q protein, which is a well-studied model of a polar binding site, using a set of eight small aromatic ligands. We observe that there is very good correlation between the MM and QM binding energies in vacuum but less so in the solvent. The relative binding free energies from DFT are more accurate than the ones from the MM calculations, and give markedly better agreement with experiment for 6 out of the 8 ligands. Furthermore, in contrast to MM-PBSA, QM-PBSA is able to correctly predict a non-binder.
Who controls store atmosphere customization in electronic retailing

Purpose – Technology now allows e‐tailers to customize online store atmosphere at the individual level, with the customization controlled and executed by either the retailers or the customers, or both. Since in conventional retailing the manipulation of store atmosphere is controlled mainly by retailers (e.g. store layout, product display techniques, store theatrics, etc.), the potential for mass customization with consumer involvement radically changes the way research regarding online store atmosphere must be approached. Positioned in the e‐tailing research area, the purpose of this paper is to summarize the research challenges presented by virtual store atmosphere customization and control and to formulate specific research propositions.Design/methodology/approach – This viewpoint paper employs an interdisciplinary “desk‐research” approach. It elaborates on the emerging research challenges of customizing store atmosphere in electronic retailing highlighting the differences that exist among the conventi.
An Enhancing Permutation Algorithm for Laser Antimissile Strategy Optimization

This paper deals with a dynamical laser antimissile problem. The laser antimissile system can destroy many targets in a short time, the attacking sequence plays an important role in practical implement. This laser antimissile problem can be seen as a dynamical traveling salesman problem. This paper introduces an enhancing algorithm to solve this problem based on three exchange strategies - the near exchange, the symmetric exchange and the near block exchange. The near exchange strategy searches for a local optimal sequence amongst its neighbors, obtaining a local optimal solution fast. The symmetric exchange will search in a larger region so as to jump out from the local optimal solution. The near block exchange expands the search region. The combination of the three exchange strategies increases the probability of finding the global optimal solution. We consider a case where there are eight attacking targets. The results show that the convergence is very fast and the local optimal solution is, indeed, quite close to the global one.
Determination of Apoptosis and Necrosis

Cell death occurs by one of two mechanisms: apoptosis (programmed cell death) or necrosis due to cellular injury or trauma. Each method has distinct morphological and biochemical characteristics. Distinguishing between apoptosis and necrosis depends selection of appropriate assays and proper timing. This unit provides an extensive series of assays that measure membrane integrity, cell size and DNA content, state of chromatin, DNA fragmentation, and caspase activation. The results of these assays allow one to distinguish between apoptosis and necrosis.
Net or Not, does it Matter?

There has been extensive debate among accounting standard setters, preparers and users regarding whether the derivative positions of financial institutions should be disclosed in a gross or net basis. On one hand, recent theoretical papers demonstrate that gross disclosures are more economically relevant. On the other hand, current U.S. accounting standard only requires the gross values to be disclosed other than recognized in the financial statements, which are considered to be less reliable from previous research. This paper sheds some light on this debate by investigating the economic consequences of banks’ disclosure of gross derivatives position as required under Statement of Financial Accounting Standard (SFAS) No. 161, “Disclosure about derivative instruments and hedging activities”. Using a sample of U.S. banks that recognize the net value of derivatives but only need to disclose the gross value of derivatives in the footnotes after SFAS No. 161, we find that the disclosed gross value provides significant explanatory power for bank share price beyond that provided by the recognized net value. We also find evidence that the mandatory disclosure of gross derivatives required by SFAS No. 161 results in a significant decrease in information asymmetry for U.S. banks that previously only disclosed net value of derivatives. The decrease in information asymmetry is more pronounced among those U.S. banks relative to European banks which have more stringent requirements for disclosing derivatives in a net basis. Taken together, these results suggest that the increased relevance of the disclosure of the gross value of derivatives dominates the decreased reliability in the relevance-reliability tradeoff and that the disclosure also reduces information asymmetry. The results are also consistent with the goal of SFAS No. 161 that aims at improving the transparency of derivative instruments disclosures.
A qualitative approach to investigating online strategic decision making

Purpose – Companies operating on the internet need appropriate metrics to make strategic marketing decisions. This paper applies established qualitative research methods to the online environment to evaluate how web managers generate and incorporate web metrics to inform strategic marketing decisions.Design/methodology/approach – Initial theories were developed using a comprehensive literature review as well as exploratory interviews with New Zealand companies. Applying a mixed methodology, the exploratory research used interviews to assess current practice within the industry, refine the research questions and set up the research design. An in‐depth case study in the USA evaluated best practices and highlighted issues that affect the use of web metrics. The main data collection utilized case studies to generate the in‐depth information necessary for theory building.Findings – The exploratory results showed that companies currently measure web site performance and consumer behaviour online but are still u.