Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A 23-kilodalton protein, distinct from BvgA, expressed by virulent Bordetella pertussis binds to the promoter region of vir-regulated toxin genes

Bordetella pertussis coordinately regulates expression of its virulence factors in response to changing environmental conditions. These factors include pertussis toxin, adenylate cyclase toxin, and the filamentous hemagglutinin (FHA). The vir (or bvg) locus has been shown genetically to be required for this coordinate regulation. We have attempted to study the biochemical basis for coordinate regulation. DNA promoter deletion studies from other laboratories have shown that two tandem 20-bp repeats -157 to -117 bp upstream from the pertussis toxin promoter are essential for transcription. A similar 20-bp tandem repeat was found at the same site in the upstream region of the adenylate cyclase toxin promoter but is not present in the FHA or vir promoter region. Gel retardation revealed protein from virulent strains (able to express the virulence genes) but not from avirulent strains (unable to express the virulence genes) bound to the promoter region of the pertussis toxin gene, and this binding could be abolished by competition with an excess of oligonucleotides corresponding to either tandem repeat. The protein was determined to be 23 kDa by Southwestern (DNA-protein) analysis and could bind to either 20-bp oligonucleotide from the pertussis toxin promoter and either 20-bp oligonucleotide from the adenylate cyclase toxin promoter. BvgA, a 23-kDa protein encoded in the vir locus, has been reported to bind to a 14-bp inverted repeat in the FHA promoter which is not present in the pertussis toxin or adenylate cyclase promoter. We could not demonstrate binding of BvgA to the pertussis toxin promoter region. These data suggest that we have identified a second 23-kDa protein, distinct from BvgA but regulated by the vir operon, that binds to DNA sequences required for transcription of some, but not all, vir-regulated genes.
Human islet transplantation from pancreases with prolonged cold ischemia using additional preservation by the two-layer (UW solution/perfluorochemical) cold-storage method

Background. A two-layer (University of Wisconsin solution/perfluorochemical [UW/PFC]) cold-storage method delivers sufficient oxygen to the pancreas during preservation and restores the ischemically damaged pancreas. In this study, we determined whether the additional preservation by the two-layer method could improve islet recovery from human pancreases with prolonged cold storage in UW. Methods. Human pancreases were procured from cadaveric organ donors and preserved by the two-layer method (UW/PFC) for 2.9±0.7 hours (mean±SEM) at 4°C after 11.8±1.5 hours of cold storage in UW (UW/PFC group, n=7), or by cold UW alone for 11.3±0.3 hours (UW group, n=14). The selected pancreases met the criteria of having at least 10 hours of cold storage in UW. All were processed by using a standard protocol of Liberase perfusion with Pefabloc by way of the duct, gentle mechanical dissociation, and Ficoll gradient purification. Transplanted islets were selected with the criteria of the Edmonton protocol (>5,000 islet equivalents [IE]/kg recipient body weight). Results. The islet recovery was significantly increased in the UW/PFC group compared with the UW group (349.2±44.1×103 and 214.0±31.0×103 IE, respectively;P <0.05). This resulted in islet yields of 4.6±1.0×103 IE/g of pancreas in the UW/PFC group compared with 2.0±0.3×103 IE/g of pancreas in the UW group (P <0.05). Five of 7 cases (71%) in the UW/PFC group and 5 of 14 cases (36%) in the UW group were transplanted. The islet grafts in the UW/PFC group improved the ability of glycemic control and decreased exogenous insulin administration in all recipients. Conclusions. Improvements in methods to preserve and recover ischemically damaged human pancreases before islet isolation and transplant could be extremely beneficial to the field of clinical islet transplantation. This preliminary study shows that additional short preservation by the two-layer (UW/PFC) cold-storage method can significantly improve islet recovery and increase opportunities of islet transplantation from human pancreases after prolonged cold ischemia.
Fixed-Term Contracts at Labour Market Entry in West Germany: Implications for Job Search and First Job Quality

Fixed-term contracts have become very relevant in the transition from school to work. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) for the period 1984–2006, this article analyses differences in the timing of receiving a fixed-term contract or a permanent contract throughout the duration of first-job search and whether fixed-term contracts are associated with lower initial wages. Competing risk duration models reveal that school leavers initially receive more often permanent contracts but that a certain proportion also accepts temporary jobs. For transitions to both fixed-term and permanent contracts, we find that the longer the time spent searching for a job, the lower the transition probability to a job. The negative duration dependence effect is even more pronounced for fixed-term employment. Comparing labour market entrants with similar individual and job characteristics using propensity score matching techniques show that entrants earn significantly less in fixed-term jobs compared to permanent employment. Wage penalties are slightly larger for those who actually choose fixed-term contracts in their first job, whereas randomly allocated job entrants would suffer lower wage losses. Especially graduates from tertiary education suffer high initial wage losses in fixed-term contracts.
The distribution of average and marginal effective tax rates in European Union member states

Macro-based summary indicators of effective tax burdens cannot provide information on the level or distribution of the marginal effective tax rates thought to influence household behaviour. They also do not capture differences in effective tax rates facing different subgroups of the population. I use EUROMOD, an EU-wide tax-benefit microsimulation model, to compute distributions of average and marginal effective tax rates across the household population in fourteen European Union Member States. Using different definitions of â€˜net taxesâ€™, the tax base and the unit of analysis I present a range of measures showing the contribution of the tax-benefit system to household incomes; average effective tax rates applicable to income from labour; and marginal effective tax rates faced by working men and women. In a second step, these measures are broken down to separately analyse the influence of each type of tax- benefit instrument. The results show that measures of effective tax rates vary considerably depending on incomes, labour market situations and family circumstances. Using single averages or macro-based indicators will therefore provide an inappropriate picture of tax burdens faced by large parts of the population.
‘Portfolio Careers’ and the Search for Flexibility in Later Life

Economic activity rates among older men have declined rapidly in recent decades, presenting major challenges for individuals and society. One solution suggested to the problems of a lack of full-time permanent jobs for older men has been more flexible ways of working such as portfolio careers, freelancing and consulting for those nearing retirement age. But there has been a lack of research examining the realities of flexible working for the 50-plus age group. This article examines the experiences of older professionals as freelancers in the UK media industry where such working practices have long been common. By examining this relationship from the employer’s and older freelancer’s perspective, this article aims to discover the true extent of choice, freedom and autonomy experienced by portfolio professionals in late career.
Antenatal sonographic detection of the proximal esophageal segment: Specific evidence for congenital esophageal atresia

To determine the biologic significance of a transient anechoic area observed in the midline of the fetal neck when attempting an antenatal ultrasound diagnosis of congenital esophageal atresia (CEA), a prospective study was made in 10 cases presenting both polyhydramnios and an unusually small stomach size due to a decrease in fetal stomach fluid. There were 8 cases indicating a transient anechoic area in the fetal neck, all of which were diagnosed as having CEA postnatally by plain roentgenogram, neonatal surgery, or autopsy findings. The remaining 2 cases had no CEA; one had Nager's syndrome and the other, a disorder involving neuronal migration in the central nervous system. These results suggest that an anechoic area in the middle of the fetal neck can be used as an indication of CEA and also for differentiating this condition from diseases with possible swallowing impairment. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Selective use of gaze information to improve ASR performance in noisy environments by cache-based class language model adaptation

Using information from a person’s gaze has potential to improve ASR performance in acoustically noisy environments. However, previous work has resulted in relatively minor improvements. A cache-based language model adaptation framework is presented where the cache contains a sequence of gaze events, classes represent visual context and task, and the relative importance of gaze events is considered. An implementation in a full ASR system is described and evaluated on a set of gaze-speech data recorded in both a quiet and acoustically noisy environment. Results demonstrate that selectively using gaze events based on measured characteristics signiﬁcantly increases the performance improvements in WER on speech recorded in the noisy environment from 6 . 34% to 10 . 58% . This work highlights: the need to selectively use information from gaze, to constrain the redistribution of probability mass between words during adaptation via classes, and to evaluate the system with gaze and speech collected in environments that represent the real-world utility.
Improving performance and lifetime of solid-state drives using hardware-accelerated compression

The performance and lifetime of highperformance solid-state drives (SSDs) can be improved by data compression, which can reduce the amount of data physically transferred from/to flash memory. In this paper, we present our experience of building a high-performance solid-state drive using a hardware accelerated compression module called BlueZIP. In order to fully exploit the BlueZIP module, we devise a compression-aware flash translation layer (FTL), called CaFTL, which supports compressionaware address mapping and garbage collection for BlueZIP. For poorly compressed pages, CaFTL supports selective compression so that unnecessary compression can be avoided. We have implemented a complete SSD prototype with BlueZIP on an FPGA-based custom SSD platform and evaluated its effectiveness using realistic workloads. Our evaluation results show that BlueZIP can increase the lifetime of the SSD prototype by 26% as well as improve read and write performance by 20% and 27%, respectively, on average1.
piggyBac as a high-capacity transgenesis and gene-therapy vector in human cells and mice

SUMMARY The stable genomic integration and expression of a large transgene is a major hurdle in gene therapy. We show that the modified piggyBac (PB) transposon system can be used to introduce a 207 kb genomic DNA fragment containing the RORγ/γt locus into human cells and mice. PB-mediated transgenesis results in a single copy of a stably inherited and expressed transgene. These results indicate that PB could serve as an effective high-capacity vector for functional analysis of the mammalian genome and for gene therapy in human cells.
A Model for Measuring the Sustainability Level of Historic Urban Quarters

The main aim of this paper is to propose a model for measuring the sustainability level of historic urban quarters and to indicate an appropriate strategy for their revitalization. Based on this aim, this study first presents the theoretical review on the concept of “revitalization”, and its relationship with sustainability; next, it introduces the characteristics, role, selection process and scaling method of sustainability indicators, which are essential for measuring the level of sustainability. The paper then, as the main contribution of this paper, proposes the model for measuring the level of sustainability in historic urban quarters and determines some proposals to achieve revitalized and sustainable historic urban quarters. Depending on the proposed model, there is a direct relationship between type and the level of obsolescence (revitalization) and the level of sustainability in the physical, economic and social structures of a particular area. Therefore, when the level of sustainability is high in any one of these three structures, it means that the level of obsolescence is low in the same structures of an historic urban quarter. The result of this paper leads us to say that, the level of sustainability is a new (additional) input in the strategic planning process of revitalization and sustainable urban revitalization of historic urban quarters. Finally, the paper concludes with a brief summary on the general arguments of the paper.
Effect of mechanical finishes on secondary electron emission of alumina ceramics

The effect of surface roughness of insulator on the secondary electron emission (SEE) coefficients was investigated with changing the incident angle of primary electrons. The SEE coefficients were measured using a scanning electron microscope with a single-pulse electron beam (100 pA, 1 ms). As a result, the SEE coefficients increased with the incident angle for smooth surface, while those of rough surface almost did not change with the incident angle. The SEE coefficients of commercial alumina ceramics with three different surface finishes, i.e. as-sintered, as-ground and mirror-finished samples, were also measured before and after annealing treatments. This treatment was carried out in air at 1400 degC for 1 h. After annealing, the SEE coefficients were higher than those of unannealed samples. This increase is proposed to be due to the defect recoveries as well as neutralizations of charging, which significantly influence the SEE. For relative low purity (95% or less), the SEE coefficients of annealed alumina became lower after mechanical grinding operations and lower again after mirror-finished operations. The SEE coefficients of 99.7% purity alumina were almost unaffected by the mechanical finishes.
Lagrange Programming Neural Network for Nondifferentiable Optimization Problems in Sparse Approximation

The major limitation of the Lagrange programming neural network (LPNN) approach is that the objective function and the constraints should be twice differentiable. Since sparse approximation involves nondifferentiable functions, the original LPNN approach is not suitable for recovering sparse signals. This paper proposes a new formulation of the LPNN approach based on the concept of the locally competitive algorithm (LCA). Unlike the classical LCA approach which is able to solve unconstrained optimization problems only, the proposed LPNN approach is able to solve the constrained optimization problems. Two problems in sparse approximation are considered. They are basis pursuit (BP) and constrained BP denoise (CBPDN). We propose two LPNN models, namely, BP-LPNN and CBPDN-LPNN, to solve these two problems. For these two models, we show that the equilibrium points of the models are the optimal solutions of the two problems, and that the optimal solutions of the two problems are the equilibrium points of the two models. Besides, the equilibrium points are stable. Simulations are carried out to verify the effectiveness of these two LPNN models.
Creating Contagious: How Social Networks and Item Characteristics Combine to Drive Persistent Social Epidemics

Why do certain cultural items capture persistent collective interest while others languish? This research integrates psychological and sociological perspectives to provide deeper insight into social epidemics. First, we develop a psychologically plausible individuallevel model of social transmission behavior. We then situate this model in a social network and perform a series of simulations where we vary different itemand networkrelated characteristics in an experimental setting. The results (1) demonstrate how item and network characteristics combine to drive persistent collective enthusiasm and (2) shed light on the underlying mechanisms through which such social epidemics occur. Interest in most items or products naturally decays over time, so item characteristics (e.g., talkability) and the network positions of early consumers are critical for bolstering consumer enthusiasm. Importantly, however, they do so via different mechanisms, determining how frequently, and with what level of enthusiasm, items are discussed. Disciplines Business | Communication Technology and New Media | Marketing | Mass Communication | Social Influence and Political Communication | Social Media Comments This is an unpublished manuscript. This working paper is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn. edu/marketing_papers/308
Relative Wages and the Changing Industrial Distribution of Employment in Australia

A simple model is used to analyze the role of changing relative wages in industry labour market adjustment between 1948–49 and 1979–80. Not with standing Australia's highly centralized system of wage determination, it was found that it has permitted modest changes in wage relativities which were generally in the right direction. To the extent that these changes were sufficient to equilibrate the labour market this probably reflects some important changes in the composition of the labour force and the high elasticity of supply from one industry to another.
In vitro and in vivo effects of reovirus on HPV16-transformed mice cells.

UNLABELLED Oncolytic viruses are examined to serve as anticancer therapeutics. It is expected that in addition to direct oncolytic effect their action will also help eliciting a solid antitumor immunity. In presented series of experiments we have employed two HPV16-transformed mouse (strain C57/B6) cell lines, TC-1 and MK16/III/ABC (MK16), and reovirus type 3, strain Dearing (RV). Both cell lines are highly susceptible to RV and produce large amounts of infectious virus in vitro while normal human are not susceptible to RV. Still, some differences were encountered. TC-1 cells produced moderately lesser amounts of infectious virus, but, paradoxically, were more efficient producers of delta1 antigen of RV and as a consequence of virus infection died more rapidly than simultaneously infected MK16 cells. Minor differences between the cell lines were observed in the percentage of cells arrested in theG2/M phase of the cell cycle and in some markers of apoptosis. When inoculating high doses (5x106) of infected cells (MOI 10 PFU/cell) into syngeneic animals their oncogenic activity was strongly suppressed, nearly completely in the case of MK16 cells and somewhat less efficiently in the case of more oncogenic TC-1 cells. Immunizing experiments in which non-oncogenic doses (106) of RV infected TC-1 cells were tested in parallel with the same doses of irradiated cells brought surprising results. When immunized animals were challenged with TC-1 cells, the irradiated cells proved to be a much better immunogen that the infected cells. However, when challenged with MK16 cells the opposite was true. It is believed that this difference was associated with the different biological properties of the cell lines tested. KEYWORDS reovirus type 3, HPV16-transformed mouse cell lines, apoptosis, cell cycle, immunization/challenge experiments.
Tourism Public Policy, and the Strategic Management of Failure

Acknowledgements. Index. List of tables. List of figures. Appendix index. Introduction. Part One. Aspects of tourism in the 21st century. Tourism and public policy approaches and theories. Tourism and public policy - the globalisation of tourism. The development, structure, and public policy of tourism in England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Republic of Ireland. Part Two. The development, structure, and public policy of tourism in Scotland. The impact on devolution and Scottish tourism of reserved powers. The strategic management of failure of Scottish tourism. Approaches to Scottish tourism public policy. Initiatives, consultations, reviews, and strategies that evolved during first Scottish Parliament (1999-2003). Scottish tourism: where to now? Bibliography. Further reading. Appendix.
The Cost of Capital and the Demand for Money by Firms: Comment

1. They do not use a cost-of-capital variable in their cross-section analysis and thus assume implicitly that all the firms in a given cross-section have the same cost of capital. This assumption, however, is inconsistent with the theory of finance, which suggests that cost of capital of a firm depends on its appropriate risk class. 2 2. They use aggregate data of firms in different industries rather than data of individual firms.
Single-crystal YAG fiber optics for the transmission of high energy laser energy

Single-crystal (SC) fibers have the potential of delivering extremely high laser energies. Sapphire fibers have been the most commonly studied SC fiber and the losses for sapphire fibers have been as low as 0.4 dB/m for a 300- micron core-only fiber at 3 microns. In this study we report on the growth of SC yttrium aluminum garnet, Y3Al5O12(YAG) fibers from undoped SC source rods using the Laser Heated Pedestal Growth (LHPG) technique. The advantage of YAG over sapphire is the slight improvement in IR transmission of YAG. The IR transmission of bulk YAG has been shown to extend to 5 μm where the absorption coefficient is 0.6 cm-1. The garnet family of crystals is one of the most commonly used oxide crystal hosts for lasing ions in high power solid-state lasers, with the most commercially common laser host being YAG. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that YAG fibers will have high laser damage thresholds. The optical losses for 400-μm diameter YAG fibers have been measured to be about 3 dB/m at 2.94 μm. The longest length of YAG fiber grown has been about 60 cm.
The anatomy of banking firm financial condition

This study employs factor analysis to develop a conceptual model of bank financial condition from financial ratios and other characteristics in Nigerian banking. It paints the anatomy of the phenomenon in a conceptual model around the prudential application of market power and market presence to transform deposit mobilisation, under a given macro-economic condition, into earnings quality with capital boosting confidence. The finding is relevant in the understanding of the 2008 global financial crisis. In the context of the global macro economy, the framework casts the current global financial meltdown in the light of the failure of market power and market presence to transform deposit mobilisation into earnings quality as imprudence stretched the sub-prime mortgage and credit default swap risks. Since capital could not offer cushion, confidence fell and bank financial condition grew worse.