Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regulation of Expression of the Fructan Hydrolase Gene of Streptococcus mutans GS-5 by Induction and Carbon Catabolite Repression

ABSTRACT The polymers of fructose, levan and inulin, as well as sucrose and raffinose, are substrates for the product of the fruA gene of Streptococcus mutans GS-5. The purpose of this study was to characterize the DNA immediately flanking fruA, to explore the regulation of expression of fruA by the carbohydrate source, and to begin to elucidate the molecular basis for differential expression of the gene. Located 3′ to fruA was an open reading frame (ORF) with similarity to β-fructosidases which was cotranscribed with fruA. A transcriptional initiation site, located an appropriate distance from an extended −10-like promoter, was mapped at 165 bp 5′ to the fruA structural gene. By the use of computer algorithms, two overlapping, stable stem-loop sequences with the potential to function as rho-independent terminators were found in the 5′ untranslated region. Catabolite response elements (CREs), which have been shown to govern carbon catabolite repression (CCR) by functioning as negative ciselements in gram-positive bacteria, were located close to the promoter. The levels of production of fruA mRNA and FruA were elevated in cells growing on levan, inulin, or sucrose as the sole carbohydrate source, and repression was observed when cells were grown on readily metabolizable hexoses. Deletion derivatives containing fusions of fruA promoter regions, lacking sequences 5′ or 3′ to the promoter, and a promoterless chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene were used (i) to demonstrate the functionality of the promoter mapped by primer extension, (ii) to demonstrate that CCR of the fru operon requires the CRE that is located 3′ to the promoter region, and (iii) to provide preliminary evidence that supports the involvement of an antitermination mechanism infruA induction.
Genetic variations in the leptin and leptin receptor genes are associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus and metabolic traits in the Korean female population

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a metabolic disorder that is characterized by insulin resistance and hyperglycemia. Leptin inhibits the glucose‐stimulated insulin secretion, and leptin receptors are present on β cells as well as on fat cells, thus enabling leptin to modulate both insulin secretion and action. Therefore, leptin (LEP) and leptin receptor (LEPR) genes could play a role in the regulation of glucose and insulin after an oral glucose load. For the association study of LEP and LEPR with T2DM and metabolic traits, 752 women from Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH data) and 532 women from the Korean Health and Genome Study (KHGS data) were selected. Using the SNUH data, we identified that LEP−632G>A and +4998A>C polymorphisms were marginally associated with T2DM, LEP+4950G>A was significantly associated with several metabolic traits, and LEPR+5193G>A, +7187A>C, +27265G>A, +35861T>C, and +52289A>G showed strongly significant association with body mass index (BMI). We observed reproducibility of these results using the KHGS data; LEP+4950G>A and +4998A>C were significantly associated with systolic blood pressure and low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol level, respectively. In conclusion, we observed that several polymorphisms in LEPR that had previous reports of association with BMI were significantly replicated in our samples and newly found that some variations of LEP were associated with T2DM and metabolic traits.
ICTs and maternal healthcare utilization. Evidence from Ghana

Purpose – Traditionally, the role of technology on health services has been argued from the supply side. The purpose of this paper is to use a demand side perspective to examine the effect of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on the use of maternal health services in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach – Study used data from the 2008 Ghana Demographic and Health Surveys and binary response regression models to examine the effect of women's access to ICTs on maternal healthcare utilization in Ghana. Three variables on maternal healthcare utilization were employed: use of contraception, antenatal care and place of delivery. Findings – Results from the study show that the effect of the use of technology is both positive and significant. In particular, among the other ICTs (i.e. landline phone, listening to radio, watch television, color television in household, computer in household), the coefficients of mobile phone ownership tends to be consistently significant across all four reproductive h.
Union Membership and Contract Coverage in the United States, 1983–1988

This paper presents union membership and contract coverage density figures, based on calculations from Current Population Survey tapes for the years 1983–88, for employed civilian workers classified by demographic and labor market characteristics, industry, occupation, state, and metropolitan area. The estimates are calculated using new Census category codes and large sample sizes for the years 1986–88. In 1988, economy-wide union membership was 16.6%, and contract coverage 18.8%, of the employed labor force. In the same year, membership and contract coverage densities for private sector workers were 12.6% and 13.8%, respectively, compared to 36.5% and 43.4% for public sector workers. Membership and contract coverage densities decreased throughout the 1983–88 period in the private sector, but remained stable in the public sector. All estimates presented here are available from the authors in machine-readable form.
Spectrum sensing based interference estimation in cognitive radio networks

Cognitive radio (CR) is proposed as a promising solution to resolve the spectrum resource scarcity. The premise to implement CR is not to introduce harmful interference to the licensed users (LU). This constraint makes interference estimation becoming very important. In this paper, we perform a quantitative analysis of the aggregation interference at the LU's receiver. We develop two multi-cell models for interference estimation based on spectrum sensing. A comprehensive analysis about the distribution of the aggregation interference is given by taking account of the architecture of multi-cells, sensing sensitivity, the distribution of the cognitive radios, and the underlying propagation environment. Numerical results validate the analysis.
Valuation of Contingent Pension Liabilities and Guarantees Under Sponsor Default Risk

This article analyzes the relationship between a pension fund with contingently indexed defined benefit liabilities and its sponsor, using contingent claims analysis. As pension funds generally choose to run a mismatch risk, future surpluses and deficits will occur. Surpluses are divided between beneficiaries and sponsor through contingent indexation of the benefits and refunding. Covering a deficit at the pension fund level is a function of the sponsor's financial ability to do so. This article suggests that this system creates an asymmetric allocation of the residual risk between sponsor and beneficiaries. The optimal investment policy for the pension fund in this context can be found by reverse engineering option valuation formulas. The main conclusion is that sponsor default risk negatively impacts the optimum risk profile and thereby the market value of contingent pension liabilities.
An Evidential Decision Theory of Turnout

According to the standard analysis, which is grounded in causal decision theory, the rational decision to participate in mass elections depends on the probability of affecting the outcome. The resulting prediction of abstention is clearly mistaken. According to the alternative, evidential decision theory, voters calculate the conditional expected utility of participating rather than its causal consequences. A version of this theory is introduced into a game theoretic model of electoral participation. Under plausible conditions, the model yields positive turnout at equilibrium even as the size of the electorate increases without bound. The paper also considers the model's utility in explaining group influences on political behavior and the supply of collective goods.
The in-store shopping experience: A comparative study of supermarket and clothing store customers

Various developments continually pressurise retailers to find new and innovative ways to differentiate themselves from competitors and adapt to ever-changing and accelerating environmental circumstances. Positioning based on customers' in-store shopping experience (ISE) offers retailers an alternative means of differentiation and is achieved by providing a superior in-store shopping experience. The ISE instrument that has been developed to measure customers' in store shopping experience is used in this study to compare the in-store shopping experiences of customers of two diverse retailing environments (supermarkets versus clothing retailers) by assessing its impact on customer retention. A proposition is formulated and the findings reported. The implications of ISE and customer retention for retail managers are also dealt with.
Corporate social responsibility disclosure and corporate governance in Malaysia

Using 743 Malaysian public listed companies, this study attempts to investigate the impact of corporate governance mechanism on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure level and to examine the difference of CSR disclosure level in government-linked companies and non-government linked companies. Employing multivariate analysis, the study reveals that the presence of larger non-executive directors and a higher involvement of institutional shareholders, which is dummied by government-linked companies cause significant increase in level of CSR disclosure. Besides, even though statistically insignificant, the duality role negatively affects disclosure level. In addition, existence of larger number of independent non-executive directors and employment of big four auditing firms contribute towards increased disclosure of CSR. This study is expected to add to the existing accounting literature by introducing instrument in measuring CSR disclosure and benefits regulators in improving corporate governance initiative in developing economic environment.
Varieties of confabulation and delusion

Introduction. Different types of confabulation or false memory can arise from brain disease. There are competing explanatory theories for the mechanisms underlying confabulation. Recent literature has attempted to relate the notion of delusion to that of confabulation. Method. A brief review of the literature relating to these ideas. Results. The varieties of confabulation or false memory that can arise from brain disease are considered. The varieties of delusion and the contexts in which they arise are considered. Comparisons are made between the characteristics of spontaneous confabulation and those of delusional memory. Conclusion. It is suggested that global theories purporting to account for both confabulation and delusions, in whatever circumstances they arise, can have only limited explanatory power. On the other hand, there are resemblances between confabulation and delusional memory, and the similarities and differences between these phenomena deserve further empirical investigation.
Technology Business Incubators and Industrial Development: Resource-Based View

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine enabling factors influencing the success of technology business incubators (TBIs) with respect to existing and acquired resources, and describe how these enabling factors have been implemented in practice.Design/methodology/approach – The potential enabling factors were identified based on the literature review through the lens of the resource‐based view (RBV) perspective. The Q‐sort method was then applied to classify those factors according to the experts' opinions, for evoking group consensus on the classifications. Finally, a Thailand science park incubator was taken as a case to illustrate the applicability of the findings.Findings – The strategic resources and their categories which can be considered as TBIs' enabling factors were found through the RBV theory. They are important to TBIs' success and improvement of technology‐based SMEs' competitive advantage.Research limitations/implications – Because of the lack of international comparisons and th.
MODELLING FARMERS' RESPONSE TO A DECOUPLED SUBSIDY VIA MULTI-ATTRIBUTE UTILITY THEORY AND E-V ANALYSIS

In this paper we simulate changes in crop land allocations made by farmers in Southern Spain due to the implementation of a flat-rate subsidy. In order to reproduce farmers' decision-making process, we first group farmers by farm size into three categories and then elicit a general utility function for each group. The elicitation of the bi-attribute utility functions, based on observed crop land allocation, does not require interaction with the farmers. The results suggest that, with the same EAGGF expenditure, small and medium-sized farms in this region would benefit from this alternative scheme in terms of higher expected total gross margin, flexibility and freedom of crop choice. The new scheme reduces control and monotoring responsabilities for Member States and the Commission and moves toward a more decoupled subsidy in line with the proposal for the Mid-Term Review of the Common Agricultural Policy.
A simple in-sample test of futures market efficiency based on rolling regressions

Given the tremendous volatility of commodity prices, models used to test the efficiency of futures markets often contain unstable parameter estimates. This instability may cause the results of hypothesis tests to become sensitive to the sample period. As a result, tests based on constant parameter specifications may be inconclusive. This article proposes an in-sample test of efficiency based on rolling regressions. Using data for crude oil futures contracts traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange between 1985 and 2010, no significant evidence of inefficiency is found.
Effects of Teachers' Readiness in Teaching and Learning of Entrepreneurship Education in Primary Schools

 Abstract— Teachers" readiness in teaching and learning is very important in producing and creating effective teaching and learning methods, especially towards the mastery, practices and cultivation of entrepreneurial values among primary school students. Therefore, this paper will be discussing on a study of teachers" readiness in teaching and learning of entrepreneurship education in primary schools (KHSR) in Petaling Utama, Petaling Jaya, Selangor area. A set of questionnaire was used as the research instrument to assess the level of teachers" readiness in teaching and learning of KHSR in primary schools. The study showed that the level of teachers" readiness in teaching and learning of entrepreneurship education KHSR is on the moderate level.
Performance Analysis of Threshold Based Compressive Sensing Algorithm in Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are comprised of spatially distributed sensor nodes, where each node contains sensors, processors and transceivers for communicating data. Regardless of the application in which the sensor network is serving, the data generated in the network eventually must be delivered to the sink. However the limited network bandwidth, frequent node/link failure along with the unreliable communication medium poses great challenges for node to node communication in WSN. Hence, energy efficient data compression algorithms are necessary for sensor nodes as they enhance the transmission efficiency in WSN. Compressive sensing is a new compression algorithm in which the input signal is converted into sparse signal and the sparse signal is further converted into a signal of reduded dimension than original signal. The dimensionality reduction improves the transmission efficiency. This new concept is recently applied in WSN, however suitable threshold selection to sparsify the one dimensional sensor reading and suitable sparifying basis for image input data are not considered in literature. Hence, in this paper analysis of compressive sensing algorithm with a suitable threshold selection is performed in order to increase the level of sparsity for one dimensional data and a suitable sparsifying basis selection is performed for image data. Results indicate that compressive sensing with suitable threshold selection improves transmission and bandwidth efficiency in case of low correlated one dimensional sensor data and a suitable basis improves the quality of transmission for image sensor data and hence the overall lifetime of sensor network can be increased.
The New Product Development Improvement Motives and Practices of Miles and Snow's Prospectors, Analysers and Defenders

Marketing, strategic management and contingency theory suggest that different strategies require different practices. The new product development (NPD) literature, however, hardly addresses the product development practices needed to support different strategies. An analysis of eight prospectors, twenty-seven analysers and seven defenders (Miles and Snow, 1978) suggests that the NPD improvement motives and practices of these three types of strategies are less different than we expected. Our explanation for this finding is that the three strategic types are growing towards each other, forced by changes in competition and enabled by new technologies and management concepts.
Gene regulation and genetics in neurochemistry, past to future

Ask any neuroscientist to name the most profound discoveries in the field in the past 60 years, and at or near the top of the list will be a phenomenon or technique related to genes and their expression. Indeed, our understanding of genetics and gene regulation has ushered in whole new systems of knowledge and new empirical approaches, many of which could not have even been imagined prior to the molecular biology boon of recent decades. Neurochemistry, in the classic sense, intersects with these concepts in the manifestation of neuropeptides, obviously dependent upon the central dogma (the established rules by which DNA sequence is eventually converted into protein primary structure) not only for their conformation but also for their levels and locales of expression. But, expanding these considerations to non‐peptide neurotransmitters illustrates how gene regulatory events impact neurochemistry in a much broader sense, extending beyond the neurochemicals that translate electrical signals into chemical ones in the synapse, to also include every aspect of neural development, structure, function, and pathology. From the beginning, the mutability – yet relative stability – of genes and their expression patterns were recognized as potential substrates for some of the most intriguing phenomena in neurobiology – those instances of plasticity required for learning and memory. Near‐heretical speculation was offered in the idea that perhaps the very sequence of the genome was altered to encode memories. A fascinating component of the intervening progress includes evidence that the central dogma is not nearly as rigid and consistent as we once thought. And this mutability extends to the potential to manipulate that code for both experimental and clinical purposes.
The technical efficiency of schools in Chile

This paper assesses the technical efficiency of schools in Chile, which is defined as the capacity of schools to generate the maximum output (academic achievement) given the quantity of inputs they use. Two alternative methodological approaches for measuring efficiency are used: (i) estimation of a stochastic production frontier, and (ii) data envelopment analysis (DEA), which allows identification of the efficient production frontier of the schools analysed nonparametrically. Each of these techniques has advantages and limitations, which are discussed in the paper; they lead, however, to the same conclusions when a sample of 2000 schools is analysed. The results obtained provide interesting points for educational policy discussion in Chile.
Image super-resolution based on error compensation with convolutional neural network

Convolutional Neural Networks have been widely studied for the super-resolution (SR) and other image restoration tasks. In this paper, we propose an additional error-compensational convolutional neural network (EC-CNN) that is trained based on the concept of iterative back projection (IBP). The residuals between interpolation images and ground truth images are used to train the network. This CNN model can compensate the residual projection in the IBP more accurately. This CNN- based IBP can be further combined with the super-resolution CNN(SRCNN). Experimental results show that our method can significantly enhance the quality of scale images as a post-processing method. The approach can averagely outperform SRCNN by 0.14 dB and SRCNN-EX by 0.08 dB in PSNR with scaling factor 3.
The immunohistological detection of platelets, megakaryocytes and thrombi in routinely processed specimens

The production and characterization of a new monoclonal antibody, Y2/51, against platelet glycoprotein IIIa is described. A useful feature of this antibody is its ability to recognize platelets and megakaryocytes in formalin‐fixed routinely processed material. It could also be used to reveal platelets both in thrombi in large vessels and in microthrombi too small to be readily apparent on conventional microscopic examination. For this purpose it was helpful to use the antibody in conjunction with a new monoclonal reagent (Ret40f) against red cell sialoglycoprotein β‐which detects red cells and their precursors in routinely processed tissue. The use of these antibodies should be valuable for the detection of thrombi in a variety of situations such as renal transplant rejection, coronary artery disease and vasculitis.
Mechanism of regulation of the hypoxia‐inducible factor‐1α by the von Hippel‐Lindau tumor suppressor protein

In normoxic cells the hypoxia‐inducible factor‐1α (HIF‐1α) is rapidly degraded by the ubiquitin‐proteasome pathway, and activation of HIF‐1α to a functional form requires protein stabilization. Here we show that the product of the von Hippel‐Lindau (VHL) tumor suppressor gene mediated ubiquitylation and proteasomal degradation of HIF‐1α under normoxic conditions via interaction with the core of the oxygen‐dependent degradation domain of HIF‐1α. The region of VHL mediating interaction with HIF‐1α overlapped with a putative macromolecular binding site observed within the crystal structure of VHL. This motif of VHL also represents a mutational hotspot in tumors, and one of these mutations impaired interaction with HIF‐1α and subsequent degradation. Interestingly, the VHL binding site within HIF‐1α overlapped with one of the minimal transactivation domains. Protection of HIF‐1α against degradation by VHL was a multistep mechanism, including hypoxia‐induced nuclear translocation of HIF‐1α and an intranuclear hypoxia‐dependent signal. VHL was not released from HIF‐1α during this process. Finally, stabilization of HIF‐1α protein levels per se did not totally bypass the need of the hypoxic signal for generating the transactivation response.