Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Detection of R Factors in Naturally Occurring Vibrio anguillarum Strains

R factors were detected in Vibrio anguillarum strains from vibrio-diseased freshwater fish, ayu (Plecoglossus altivelis), in Japan. It was found that 65 out of the 68 random isolates from epidemics of vibrio disease in 1973 carried transferable drug resistance factors. The most common type determined resistance to sulfonamides, streptomycin, chloramphenicol, and tetracycline and belong to the fi− type. The high incidence of R factors in Vibrio anguillarum from cultured fish is assumed to be due to selective pressure exerted by chemotherapeutic agents used in fish culturing.
Supply Chain Cost Management : A Life Cycle Perspective (創立50周年記念論文集)

recent many global markets have experienced enhanced volatility in the demand for finished Abstract Recently, nearly all goods have been experiencing shrinking life cycles, and drastic changes in consumer demand have occurred. The challenges presented by this changing market can be successfully coped with through the appropriate use of supply chains. Supply chains naturally excel at sharing market- and management-related information among participants, thereby enabling the swift provision of goods needed by consumers. The development of individual firms depends largely on whether they can become part of well-integrated and highly competitive supply chain. This requirement for competitiveness applies to all firms, whether they are up-stream or downstream firms. Without a doubt, competition among supply chains will become more intense in the future. The purpose of this study is to theoretically and logically examine effective supply chain cost management. based on a review of relevant literature. In addition, this study addresses the control of supply chains comprised of independent companies, in which all partners are engaged in the long-term implementation of supply chain operations. Supply chain development through exchange partners is not part of the framework of this study.
Public Export Guarantees and Foreign Trade Structure

Inter-industry trade and foreign trade are usually not based on cash transactions; rather sales on credit are the rule. The resulting monitoring costs for lenders and the risk of default on accounts receivable form an additional part of transaction costs in trade. Export credit certainly faces higher transaction costs due to differences in language, business practice, jurisdiction, and payment enforceability between trading partners. Export credit insurance has long been a domain of public export credit agencies, but since the beginning of the 1980's private insurance is gaining ground. Using disaggregated panel data for goods exports from Austria, we show that public export guarantees have a more than proportional positive impact on trade volumes. Export guarantees predominantly affect the country structure of foreign trade, but leave the industry specialization almost constant.
Acute myocardial infarction in hospitalized patients with community-acquired pneumonia.

BACKGROUND An epidemiological link between respiratory infection and acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has been suggested, and recent data indicate that there is an association between AMI and pneumococcal community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) in hospitalized patients. The objective of this study was to investigate the association of AMI with the severity of pneumonia at hospitalization and clinical failure during hospitalization among patients with CAP. METHODS An observational, retrospective study involving consecutive patients hospitalized with CAP was performed at the Veterans Hospital of Louisville, Kentucky. Patients admitted to the intensive care unit were defined as having severe CAP. Clinical failure was defined as the development of respiratory failure or shock. AMI was diagnosed on the basis of abnormal troponin levels and electrocardiogram findings. Propensity-adjusted models that controlled for clinical and nonclinical factors were used to investigate the association between AMI and pneumonia severity index and between AMI and clinical failure. RESULTS Data for a total of 500 patients were studied. At hospital admission, AMI was present in 13 (15%) of 86 patients with severe CAP. During hospitalization, AMI was present in 13 (20%) of 65 patients who experienced clinical failure. Following risk adjustment, significant associations were discovered between AMI and the pneumonia severity index score (modeled with a restricted cubic spline) (P = .05) and between AMI and clinical failure (P = .04). CONCLUSIONS A combined diagnosis of CAP and AMI is common among hospitalized patients with severe CAP. In cases in which the clinical course of a hospitalized patient with CAP is complicated by clinical failure, AMI should be considered as a possible etiology.
Agonistic and antagonistic properties of progesterone metabolites at the human mineralocorticoid receptor.

OBJECTIVE Progesterone binds to the human mineralocorticoid receptor (hMR) with nearly the same affinity as do aldosterone and cortisol, but confers only low agonistic activity. It is still unclear how aldosterone can act as a mineralocorticoid in situations with high progesterone concentrations, e.g. pregnancy. One mechanism could be conversion of progesterone to inactive compounds in hMR target tissues. DESIGN We analyzed the agonist and antagonist activities of 16 progesterone metabolites by their binding characteristics for hMR as well as functional studies assessing transactivation. METHODS We studied binding affinity using hMR expressed in a T7-coupled rabbit reticulocyte lysate system. We used co-transfection of an hMR expression vector together with a luciferase reporter gene in CV-1 cells to investigate agonistic and antagonistic properties. RESULTS Progesterone and 11beta-OH-progesterone (11beta-OH-P) showed a slightly higher binding affinity than cortisol, deoxycorticosterone and aldosterone. 20alpha-dihydro(DH)-P, 5alpha-DH-P and 17alpha-OH-P had a 3- to 10-fold lower binding potency. All other progesterone metabolites showed a weak affinity for hMR. 20alpha-DH-P exhibited the strongest agonistic potency among the metabolites tested, reaching 11.5% of aldosterone transactivation. The agonistic activity of 11beta-OH-P, 11alpha-OH-P and 17alpha-OH-P was 9, 5.1 and 4.1% respectively. At a concentration of 100 nmol/l, progesterone, 17alpha-OH-P and 20alpha-DH-P inhibit nearly 75, 40 and 35% of the transactivation by aldosterone respectively. All other progesterone metabolites tested demonstrate weaker affinity, and agonistic and antagonistic potency. CONCLUSIONS The binding affinity for hMR and the agonistic and antagonistic activity diminish with increasing reduction of the progesterone molecule at C20, C17 and at ring A. We assume that progesterone metabolism to these compounds is a possible protective mechanism for hMR. 17alpha-OH-P is a strong hMR antagonist and could exacerbate mineralocorticoid deficiency in patients with congenital adrenal hyperplasia.
Decentralized Framework for Optimal Price-Based Power System Operation Using Feedback Control Mechanism

Future power systems are expected to have distributed energy resources (DERs). A price-based operation (PBO), where dynamic prices are used as the control signal, can be an alternative scheme to address challenging operational issues in the future power systems. In this paper, a decentralized framework for optimal PBO using a feedback control mechanism is proposed to determine the nodal prices for power balance and congestion management. The substructures and feedback controllers of the proposed framework are derived based on the optimal power flow (OPF) method. Thus, the framework guarantees optimality for all situations in real-time and enables the use of various types of controllers. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is verified with the IEEE 39 bus network under some scenarios, such as the failure of a generator and a transmission line. The results clearly demonstrate that the proposed framework successfully resolves the balance and congestion problems by generating appropriate nodal prices in the PBO and provides a solution similar to the optimal solution determined by the conventional OPF method.
Optimizing Marketing Activities for Different Levels of Customer Relationships

In presenting this dissertation as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree from Georgia State University, I agree that the Library of the University shall make it available for inspection and circulation in accordance with its regulations governing materials of this type. I agree that permission to quote from, to copy from, or publish this dissertation may be granted by the author or, in his/her absence, the professor under whose direction it was written or, in his absence, by the Dean of the Robinson College of Business. Such quoting, copying, or publishing must be solely for the scholarly purposes and does not involve potential financial gain. It is understood that any copying from or publication of this dissertation which involves potential gain will not be allowed without written permission of the author. All dissertations deposited in the Georgia State University Library must be used only in accordance with the stipulations prescribed by the author in the preceding statement. 2013 ACCEPTANCE This dissertation was prepared under the direction of the Karl G. Hellman Dissertation Committee. It has been approved and accepted by all members of that committee, and it has been accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctoral of Philosophy in Business Administration in the J.
A simple enquiry on heterogeneous lending rates and lending behaviour

This paper contain an empirical analysis on the most relevant determinants of heterogeneity in Italian banks' lending rate and lending behaviour, performed with descriptive statistics and dynamic panel data analysis on the basis of a "mesoeconomic" data set specifically acquired from the Bank of Italy, which contains the data on interest rates, bad debts and credit flows granted by different size categories of banks under the form of different size categories of loans in different geographic areas of the country, for the period 1990 QI -1998 QIV. The purpose of the econometric analyses is twofold: First, investigating the possible disturbances affecting the link between policy rate and interest rates on bank credit; second verify whether the behaviour of the largest bank loans is demand-determined. The results show that the spread between interest rate on the various classes of bank loans and the monetary policy rate is not influenced by the loan size, while it seems to be more affected by proxies for risk and competitive configuration of the banking sector. Furthermore, the behaviour of the largest size class of bank loans does show a pattern consistent with a "demand determined" behaviour.
Pharmaceutical care plan examinations to identify students at risk for poor performance in advanced pharmacy practice experiences.

OBJECTIVES To evaluate early predictors of advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) performance using either timed pharmaceutical care plan (TPCP) reports of 4 case histories or traditional lecture-based pharmacotherapy course examinations. METHODS Statistical process control (SPC) methods were used to identify a group of third-year pharmacy students "at risk" for poor APPE performance (defined as an APPE grade point average of < 3.0). Examination scores from an integrated lecture-based pharmacotherapy sequence were used for comparison. RESULTS TPCP scores but not lecture-based examination scores successfully identified 6 of 10 students who ultimately performed poorly in their APPEs. CONCLUSION Adaptation of SPC methods to assess student performance during problem-based learning (PBL) case reports is a useful technique for identifying students "at risk" for poor APPE performance.
A STUDY TO INDICATE THE IMPORTANCE OF CONSUMER BASED-BRAND EQUITY ON CONSUMER PERCEPTION OF BRAND

Strong brand equity has become a very important factor that influences consumer’s perceptions of a brand. Success in brand management arises from understanding and managing brand equity correctly to produce strong attributes that will influence consumers when making their choices. This thesis focuses on the importance of these dimensions (brand awareness, brand loyalty, brand image and perceived quality) of customer-based brand equity on consumer’s perceptions of a brand. This is based on the assumption that all these dimensions of customer based-brand equity will have influence on consumer’s perceptions of brand. However, this thesis aims to find out which among these three dimensions (brand image, brand loyalty and perceived quality) appear to have the least brand equity in both restaurants and to find out if customer based-brand equity differ between the two restaurants with respect to each attribute of brand awareness, brand image, perceived quality and brand loyalty. Brand awareness was treated separately from other dimensions because of the difference in scale. A structured questionnaire was constructed to provide answers to our research question. In this study, one hundred questionnaires were distributed, but only sixty four useable questionnaires were realized. The study surveyed four dimensions of consumer’s based-brand equity namely brand awareness, brand image, perceived quality and brand loyalty. Among the three dimensions, brand loyalty appears to have the least brand equity rating by consumers than the other dimensions. Although, the four dimension appear to have influence on consumer perceptions of brand.
Pseudogap and superconductivity in two-dimensional doped charge-transfer insulators

High-temperature superconductivity emerges upon doping a state of matter that is insulating because of interactions. A widely studied model considers one orbital per ${\mathrm{CuO}}_{2}$ unit cell on a square lattice with a strong intraorbital repulsion that leads to a so-called Mott-Hubbard insulator. Here we solve a model that takes into account, within each unit cell, two oxygen orbitals where there is no electron-electron repulsion and a copper orbital with strong electron-electron repulsion. The insulating phase is a so-called charge-transfer insulator, not a Mott-Hubbard insulator. Using cluster dynamical mean-field theory with continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo as an impurity solver and 12 atoms per cluster, we report the normal and superconducting phase diagram of this model as a function of doping, interaction strength, and temperature. As expected, the three-orbital model is consistent with the experimental observation that doped holes are located predominantly on oxygens, a result that goes beyond the one-orbital model. Nevertheless, the phase boundary between pseudogap and correlated metal, the Widom line, and the origin of the pairing energy (kinetic vs potential) are similar to the one-orbital model, demonstrating that these are emergent phenomena characteristic of doped Mott insulators, independently of many microscopic details. Broader implications are discussed.
Seizure recurrence and remission after switching antiepileptic drugs

Purpose: Studies of seizure outcome in patients undergoing serial antiepileptic drug trials have all been uncontrolled, with no account made for the spontaneous changes in disease state that could confound the elucidation of drug effects. In addition, no study has ever looked at outcome following antiepileptic drug switch in seizure‐free patients, despite the fact that this is done routinely in clinical practice. We aimed to address both of these issues using a matched case‐cohort design.
Speech recognition of a named entity

A hierarchical language model is newly applied to identify a named entity consisting of multiple word sequences for continuous speech recognition. By redesigning an out-of-vocabulary model of a single word using phonotactic constraints for a named entity, a hierarchical model is composed harmoniously with conventional word and word-class N-grams. Continuous speech recognition experiments aimed at movie-title identification showed the effectiveness of this modeling in the task of inquiries on these titles. These results ensure that the proposed hierarchical language modeling architecture is applicable to multiple word successions for speech recognition to cope with unregistered expressions and enables the mixed use of different statistics harmoniously.
[Action of schizandrin B, an antioxidant, on lipid peroxidation in primary cultured hepatocytes].

The action of schizandrin B (Sin B) was observed in freshly isolated hepatocytes damaged by FeSO4/cysteine and CCl4. Two types of free radicals, . OH and . CCl3, generated from FeSO4/cysteine and CCl4, respectively, induced lipid peroxidation in hepatocytes. It was found that the speed of lipid peroxidation (MDA production) and the degree of alteration in hepatocyte morphology were closely related to the type of free radicals. MDA production and membrane protrusion of hepatocytes injuries by FeSO4/cysteine were faster and more severe than those observed with CCl4. Sin B was shown to decrease the production of MDA and the release of GPT and LDH, and to increase hepatocyte viability as well as maintaining the integrity of the hepatocyte membrane surface. These actions of Sin B were stronger than vitamin E at the same concentration. It was observed that no inhibitory effect of phenobarbital, a typical inducer of cytochrome P-450, as Sin B induced liver cytochrome P-450, on MDA production in hepatocytes damaged by FeSO4/cysteine. The results suggest that Sin B possesses antioxidant activity.
A framework for improving the effectiveness of IT in employment screening

Organizations are slow in utilising information technologies to manage employment screening. A framework is proposed to improve the effectiveness of IT in employment screening. The key elements to this framework include: a) the influence of internet job application tools on preemployment screening checks, b) the influence of web technology orders on online background screening checks, c) the influence of pre-employment screening tools on online background screening checks, d) the influence of online background screening tools on completed background screening reports, and on generating eOffers / job decline letters. It also looks at the integration of web technology orders, applicant tracking systems, extensible markup language, voice over internet protocol), interactive voice response and Electronic Offers in mainstream recruitment, selection, screening and hiring in IT based employment screening systems. The grounded theory method was used to develop the framework followed by the discussion on the implications of various relationships within the framework using quantitative information gathered from an email questionnaire survey.
Double-blind Cross-over Study of Ketoprofen and Ibuprofen in Management of Rheumatoid Arthritis

A double-blind cross-over study of ketoprofen (Orudis) 150 mg daily and ibuprofen (Brufen) 1,200 mg daily was carried out in 35 outpatients with rheumatoid arthritis. Results suggest that analgesic and anti-inflammatory activity of ketoprofen is superior to that of ibuprofen. Significantly greater pain relief (P < 0·05) and reduction in joint circumference (P < 0·01) was obtained with ketoprofen than with ibuprofen. Side effects of the drugs were comparable and not serious.
Simulation and Experimental Study on Barrier Thickness of Superlattice Electron Blocking Layer in Near-Ultraviolet Light-Emitting Diodes

The optical performance and relevant physical properties of near-ultraviolet (NUV) GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are investigated. Specifically, the influence of traditional AlGaN bulk electron blocking layer (EBL) and AlGaN/GaN superlattice (SL) EBL with various thicknesses of AlGaN layers on NUV LEDs is explored. It is indicated from the band diagrams, electrostatic field profile, electron reflecting and hole transmitting spectra, and carrier concentrations profile that the use of a thin AlGaN layer of AlGaN/GaN SL EBL is beneficial to the electron confinement and hole injection in the active region, which results in the high internal quantum efficiency and low efficiency droop at high injection current. Moreover, the experimental results show that replacing the traditional AlGaN bulk EBL with the AlGaN/GaN SL EBL can markedly improve the optical performance. When compared with the NUV LED with traditional AlGaN bulk EBL, the output power of the NUV LED with the proposed AlGaN/GaN SL EBL increases from 13.5 to 48.7 mW at 100 mA.
Harmonic Burst Control Strategy for Full-Bridge Series-Resonant Converter-Based EV Charging

An effective output voltage regulation method using harmonic burst control is presented. This method can greatly improve operating performance of the full-bridge series-resonant dc–dc converter (SRC) applied to electric vehicle (EV) battery charging. The proposed harmonic burst control not only provides load regulation, but it also achieves soft switching at both turn-ons and turn-offs under all load conditions. As a result, it improves the system efficiency over 10% for light-load conditions without any extra hardware, compared to that of the traditional frequency modulation method. Moreover, it has much smaller pulsed power over a wide range load compared to the traditional bang-bang burst control. Theoretical analysis of the series-resonant circuit and power loss analysis are discussed in detail in this paper. Experimental results based on a 1-kW prototype with 20-cm air gap between the primary and secondary sides of the series-resonant converter are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.
Serological AFP/Golgi protein 73 could be a new diagnostic parameter of hepatic diseases

We have investigated the changing rule of serum form of GP73 (sGP73) in different hepato‐pathologic processes and identified the sGP73 role in inflammation, fibrosis and carcinogenesis since sGP73 has been regarded as a candidate tumor marker. Quantitative enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay detected sGP73 in 535 subjects with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), liver cirrhosis (LC), hepatitis, focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH), angioma, intra‐hepatic cholangio‐carcinoma (ICC) and metastatic cancer from adenocarcinomas (MC). Median sGP73 in LC was higher than in HCC and hepatitis (p = 0.001), and sGP73 in all three groups were higher than those in healthy individuals (p < 0.001); sGP73 in LC patients with Child‐Pugh class A was lower than in class B and C (p = 0.001), no significant difference was found between early and advanced HCC groups (110.4 μg/L vs. 102.8 μg/L). AFP/GP73 had a sensitivity of 75.8% and specificity of 79.7% with an area under the receiver operating curve (AUROC) of 0.844 vs. 0.812 for AFP (p = 0.055) with a sensitivity of 95.2% and specificity of 47.1%; in detecting early HCC, AUROC of AFP/GP73 was 0. 804 vs. 0.766 for AFP (p = 0.086). sGP73 correlated with AST, AST/ALT, ALB, A/G and ALP in LC. The positive rate of sGP73 in angioma, FNH, ICC, and MC was 0, 50, 63.3, 53.3%, respectively; AFP/GP73 was 0.796 with the sensitivity of 81.4% and specificity of 70.0% when differentiating MC from AFP‐negative HCC. Increased sGP73 is related to hepatic impairment and chronic fibrosis, and when combined with AFP could improve the differential diagnosis of hepatic diseases.