Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Altered glycosylation of complexed native IgG molecules is associated with disease activity of systemic lupus erythematosus

In addition to the redundancy of the receptors for the Fc portion of immunoglobulins, glycans result in potential ligands for a plethora of lectin receptors found in immune effector cells. Here we analysed the exposure of glycans containing fucosyl residues and the fucosylated tri-mannose N-type core by complexed native IgG in longitudinal serum samples of well-characterized patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. Consecutive serum samples of a cohort of 15 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus during periods of increased disease activity and remission were analysed. All patients fulfilled the 1982 American College of Rheumatology classification criteria. Sera of 15 sex- and age-matched normal healthy blood donors served as controls. The levels and type of glycosylation of complexed random IgG was measured with lectin enzyme-immunosorbent assays. After specifically gathering IgG complexes from sera, biotinylated lectins Aleuria aurantia lectin and Lens culinaris agglutinin were employed to detect IgG-associated fucosyl residues and the fucosylated tri-mannose N-glycan core, respectively. In sandwich-ELISAs, IgG-associated IgM, IgA, C1q, C3c and C-reactive protein (CRP) were detected as candidates for IgG immune complex constituents. We studied associations of the glycan of complexed IgG and disease activity according to the physician’s global assessment of disease activity and the systemic lupus erythematosus disease activity index 2000 documented at the moment of blood taking. Our results showed significantly higher levels of Aleuria aurantia lectin and Lens culinaris agglutinin binding sites exposed on IgG complexes of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus than on those of normal healthy blood donors. Disease activity in systemic lupus erythematosus correlated with higher exposure of Aleuria aurantia lectin-reactive fucosyl residues by immobilized IgG complexes. Top levels of Aleuria aurantia lectin-reactivity were found in samples taken during the highest activity of systemic lupus erythematosus. Our results show that native circulating IgG complexes from active systemic lupus erythematosus patients expose fucosyl residues and their glycan core is accessible to soluble lectins. Two putative mechanisms may contribute to the increased exposure of these glycans: (1) the canonical N-glycosylation site of the IgG-CH2 domain; (2) an IgG binding non-IgG molecule, like complement or C-reactive protein. In both cases the complexed IgG may be alternatively targeted to lectin receptors of effector cells, e.g. dendritic cells.
Time Allocations for Study: Evidence from Arts Students in Australia.

Purpose – The primary purpose of this paper is to compare time availability and its allocation amongst Arts students. In addition it aims to match time availability and use with informants' resource preferences and the variables of language background and residential status.Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 109 students completed quantitatively‐based electronic and paper‐copy surveys. Empirical data from primary informants form the basis of analysis.Findings – The paper finds that over 90 per cent of informants have non‐study commitments and over half have commitments of six or more hours per week. The largest single group (35 per cent) has obligations of six to 14 hours per week. There is only a weak correlation between a higher number of commitments a lower amount of “out‐of‐class” time to engage with study obligations. Conversely, fewer extra‐curricular obligations does not automatically lead to a higher number of hours devoted to study. Differences in resource use are small: paper copy resourc.
Accurate Simulation of Transistor-Level Variability for the Purposes of TCAD-Based Device-Technology Cooptimization

In this paper we illustrate how the predictive Technology Computer Aided Design (TCAD) process device simulation can be used to evaluate process, statistical, and time-dependent variability at the early stage of the development of new technology. This is critically important for the delivery of accurate early Process Design Kits, including process variability, statistical variability, time-dependent variability (degradation) and their interactions and correlations. This is also critical to the TCAD-based Design-Technology Co-Optimisation (DTCO). To accomplish this task, the fast, large area Coventor virtual fabrication platform SEMulator3D was integrated in the GoldStandradSimulations TCAD-based DTCO tool chain. Published data for Intel 22-nm FinFET technology are used to illustrate and validate the results of the TCAD process and device simulation, the compact model extraction, and the statistical circuit simulation.
Just war and the Gulf war

Prior to military action in the Gulf War, the United States went through a remarkable national self-examination, a six-month-long debate over the ethics and politics of any possible US response to Iraqi aggression in Kuwait. Politicians and op-ed columnists, talk-show hosts and their audiences, military officers and congressmen all entered the debate in terms frequently drawn from the venerable "just war" tradition - a calculus of moral reasoning whose roots go back to St Augustine. Was America's a "just cause"? Who was the "competent authority" to authorize the use of armed force? How could "non-combatant immunity" be protected? Was Desert Storm a "last resort"? One of America's foremost historians of the just war tradition, James Turner Johnson, analyzes the decision to confront Iraq militarily and the actual conduct of the campaign according to the classic just war criteria. George Weigel surveys the involvement of America's religious leaders in the debate and their faithfulness to the classic just war principles. He suggests that a "functional pacifism" may be the new orthodoxy among certain clerical elites. "Just War and the Gulf War" concludes with a compilation of documents drawn from the moral debate over Operation Desert Storm, including many policy statements by the White House, the National Council of Churches and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Characteristics of Malaysian ecotourist segments in Kinabalu Park, Sabah

This study segments Malaysian ecotourists based on their experiences related to primary ecotourism attributes. The study was conducted in the Kinabalu Park, Sabah, Borneo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which is also listed as one of the hotspots for biodiversity in the region. The respondents for this study comprised 403 Malaysian tourists. Discriminant analysis was able to differentiate the ecotourists into three segments: hard, structured and soft ecotourists. About 82% of the explained variance in discriminating the three segments was mostly contributed by variables measuring the ecotourists’ trip characteristics that included their expectations towards services and preferences for arranged travel. Meanwhile, about 60% of the Malaysian ecotourists were categorized as structured and soft ecotourists. This study was able to find common ecotourists’ traits within a different region that further reinforced the identification of the ecotourist segments along the hard–soft ecotourism spectrum.
Rapid Descriptive Consumer Analysis Using Simultaneous and Monadic Sample Presentation for Coffee

The objective of this study was to investigate how rapid descriptive consumer analysis using simultaneous presentation of samples compared with monadic presentation of samples, using both affective and descriptive sensory evaluation methods. Simultaneous presentation of coffee samples for sensory acceptance testing, using ranking analysis, was conducted using naive assessors. In a separate session, assessors evaluated the same coffee samples, using monadic presentation and employing the same scales. Similarly, descriptive consumer analysis, using simultaneous and monadic sample presentation, was conducted using descriptive attributes chosen by the panel. For RDA (Ranking descriptive analysis), coffee samples were presented simultaneously (randomised) to assessors and subsequently ranked. The process was then repeated using the same assessors; however, samples were presented in monadic and randomised presentation order. Data accumulated from the study were analysed by Analysis of Variance (APLSR-ANOVA Partial Least Squares Regression). Results obtained indicate that simultaneous presentation of samples was more effective than monadic presentation, as a larger amount of attributes with significant (P
Value relevance of accounting information in China pre‐ and post‐2001 accounting reforms

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate whether the accounting reform in China has improved the relevance of China's accounting information. It seeks to investigate the association between earnings and book value of equity to share returns before and after the introduction of the Accounting System for Business Enterprises (ASBE) in 2001 for A- and A&B-share firms. Design/methodology/approach - The paper employs the return regression model. The pre-ASBE period is designated as 1997 through to 2000, and the post-ASBE period is designated as 2002 through to 2004. All firms listed on the Chinese stock market during the investigation period constitute the sample. Findings - It is found that accounting information better explains share returns for both A-share firms and A&B-share firms in the post-ASBE period. The paper also finds that the book value of equity for A&B-share firms is incrementally value relevant to that of A-share firms in the post-ASBE period. Research limitations/implications - Further studies will contribute to understanding how governance mechanisms and liquidity influence the association between accounting information and share returns in the Chinese A-share market. Practical implications - The findings provide empirical evidence regarding the relevance of accounting information in emerging markets. Originality/value - The paper contributes to the extant value relevance literature by investigating time periods surrounding the issue of ASBE in 2001 in the Chinese stock market.
HOW DO LONG-TERM INVESTORS "VOTE" IN DEVELOPING COUNTRY ELECTIONS?

Investment decision-making in developing countries has largely ignored the role that local electoral politics may play in either encouraging or discouraging long-term investment projects sponsored by foreign firms. Increase in developing country foreign direct investment on the one hand, and trends promoting democratization and competitive elections on the other hand provide an ideal research opportunity to investigate possible investment-election linkages. We do so through development and testing of a framework integrating partisan and opportunistic political business cycle ("PBC") theories to predict trends in the count of major investment projects announced in 18 emerging-market countries holding 31 presidential elections from 1987-2000. Consistent with the framework, we find that firms sponsoring major project investments perceive lower investment risk in the form of more investment project announcements as left-wing political incumbents appear more likely to be replaced by right-wing challengers. Sim.
Option Market Efficiency and Analyst Recommendations

This paper examines the information content in option markets surrounding analyst recommendation changes. The sample includes 6,119 recommendation changes for optionable stocks over the period January 1996 through December 2005. As expected, mean underlying asset returns are positive (negative) on days of recommendation upgrades (downgrades). However, volatility levels and shifts prior to recommendation changes explain a significant portion of underlying asset price responses. Ex-ante price and volatility responses in option markets are linked to increased jump uncertainty risk premia. Our findings suggest information in option markets leads analyst recommendation changes, implying revisions contain less information than previously thought. Copyright (c) 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Advanced Technology for Extracorporeal Liver Support System Devices

Acute Liver Failure (ALF) still presents high mortality rates, and liver transplant is the only treatment with proven efficacy. However transplant is not always possible and systems for Extracorporeal Liver Support (ELS) are being developed which can treat patients with ALF, for whom a transplant is not available, or is delayed. They can also treat patients with chronic liver disease who develop ALF. There are two types of ELS: artificial systems (hemoperfusion, plasmaperfusion, therapeutic plasma exchange, continuous hemodialysis and high volume continuous hemofiltration) and bioartificial systems. These are based on a biological component (animal or human hepatocytes) inserted into a bioreactor, whose main function is to perform the metabolic activity and synthesis that the liver can no longer perform. The results obtained in clinical trials have so far shown that the best results in terms of compensating for lost metabolic function and detoxification are obtained inserting artificial components in the bioartificial circuit.
Angle clustering in indoor space-time channels based on ray tracing

Clustering of paths in angle in RF multipath scenarios has been observed in measured data, explicitly used in stochastic propagation models, and shown to have a significant impact on the capacity of MIMO links. A 3D ray tracing is used to characterize the path delays and angles in a rectangular building in which all interior walls are parallel and perpendicular to the exterior walls. Path delays and angles are recorded for 200 random transmitter and receiver locations, maintaining constant range and throughout a particular building model. The main contribution of this paper is the observation that when all of the path angles from all 200 trials are measured relative to one building wall and collectively analyzed in a histogram, clustering is clearly apparent. Furthermore, the mean angles of the clusters are a function of the range between the transmitter and receiver. While this angle clustering in the ensemble of channels is not the same as clustering in a single channel trial, it may partially account for the clusters observed in single trials. As a practical matter, these results may impact the use and placement of directional antennas for wireless LANs in buildings of this type. By simply measuring the angles relative to the line-of-sight (LOS) path rather than the building wall, the data is shown to be consistent with the joint probability density function (PDF) of delay and angle based on the geometrically based elliptical model (GBEM).
Reliable Multi-View Clustering

With the advent of multi-view data, multi-view learning (MVL) has become an important research direction in machine learning. It is usually expected that multi-view algorithms can obtain better performance than that of merely using a single view. However, previous researches have pointed out that sometimes the utilization of multiple views may even deteriorate the performance. This will be a stumbling block for the practical use of MVL in real applications, especially for tasks requiring high dependability. Thus, it is eager to design reliable multi-view approaches, such that their performance is never degenerated by exploiting multiple views.This issue is vital but rarely studied. In this paper, we focus on clustering and propose the Reliable Multi-View Clustering (RMVC) method. Based on several candidate multi-view clusterings, RMVC maximizes the worst-case performance gain against the best single view clustering, which is equivalently expressed as no label information available. Specifically, employing the squared χ2 distance for clustering comparison makes the formulation of RMVC easy to solve, and an efficient strategy is proposed for optimization. Theoretically, it can be proved that the performance of RMVC will never be significantly decreased under some assumption. Experimental results on a number of data sets demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively improve the reliability of multi-view clustering.
Can the Welfare State as We Know It Survive? A View from the Crisis-Ridden South European Periphery

South European countries have been hit hardest and longest by the post-2008 economic crisis. This has brought their welfare states under acute strain. Unmet need has sharply increased while significant welfare reforms and (more or less) deep cuts and changes in social spending have been prominent in the repertoire of the crisis management solutions implemented by the governments (under European Union constraints and the strict rescue-deal requirements for Greece and Portugal). This introduction briefly reviews reform trends prior to and during the crisis in order to highlight convergent and divergent paths among the four countries and outline the major questions addressed by the contributions to this volume.
Bovine Hereditary Zinc Deficiency: Lethal Trait a 46

Bovine hereditary zinc deficiency, also referred to as Adema disease, is an autosomal recessive disorder which results in inadequate amounts of zinc being absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract and leads to a number of clinical abnormalities. Using semen from a homozygous affected bull and obligate heterozygote cows in embryo transfer studies, 7 offspring were obtained. These included 5 affected calves and 1 heterozygous carrier; the seventh calf died within 48 hours of birth undiagnosed. One unaffected, unrelated bull calf was raised as a control. All the calves were raised and maintained under similar management conditions designed to minimize secondary complications that would obscure the clinical and biochemical observations of a zinc deficient state. The first clinical manifestation of zinc deficiency was diarrhea, followed by skin lesions, poliosis, and a decreased ability to sustain a suckle reflex. Trace mineral analysis of plasma blood samples revealed that plasma zinc concentrations of all the calves were normal at birth; however, they gradually declined in affected calves over the course of 3–8 weeks postpartum to below 0.5 ppm. Biochemical analysis of serum samples showed alkaline phosphatase activity consistently paralleled changes in the plasma zinc concentrations. The oral administration of zinc acetate caused a reversal of all clinical, biochemical, and histologic abnormalities in affected calves. The study of these affected calves allows further insight into the biological role of zinc as well as provides an animal model for the continued investigation of the human homologue acrodermatitis enteropathica.
InTml: A Dataflow Oriented Development System for Virtual Reality Applications

This paper presents our research on the Interaction Techniques Markup Language (InTml). Our final goal in this work is to find ways to evolve and fit virtual reality (VR) applications over heterogeneous hardware platforms, a process we call retargeting. Toward this goal, we have developed a hardware-independent, component-based, formal model that describes the execution of VR applications; an XML language for describing complex and implementation-independent VR applications; a methodology for InTml-based development; a manual way to isolate and replace interaction techniques as a contribution to VR retargeting; and a set of tools for development support. This paper describes these topics and states future directions of our research.
Quinolone Resistance and Correlation to Other Antimicrobial Resistances in Faecal Isolates of Escherichia coli in Hong Kong

In an attempt to assess the level of quinolone resistance and its association with other antimicrobial resistance in faecal Escherichia coli isolated from routine outpatient specimens in Hong Kong, ciprofloxacin-supplemented MacConkey agar was used to screen for resistant isolates. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing of the isolates was done by VITEK 2 and previous amplification-based methods were employed to characterize the genetic determinants behind some of the resistance phenotypes. One hundred and seventy-six (43%) of 409 specimens had quinolone-resistant E. coli isolated (199 isolates). Quinolone resistance was found to be associated with resistances to penicillins (>80%) and co-trimoxazole (69%). Nonsusceptibility to combinations of penicillins and clavulanic acid was above 20% and up to 50% for the aminoglycosides gentamicin and tobramycin. CTX-M-type extended-spectrum β-lactamases were found responsible for most cephalosporin resistances but the transferable quinolone resistance determinant qnrA was not detected. Our data suggested that a high percentage of E. coli isolates as part of the alleged normal intestinal microflora in humans appeared to be resistant to quinolones. Co-resistance to various other frequently used antimicrobials was also observed. Transferable genetic determinants were found to be involved in some cases.
Discussion of ‘Business-model (intent)-based accounting’ by Jim Leisenring, Thomas Linsmeier, Katherine Schipper and Edward Trott (2012)

In reading this paper, I particularly appreciated the consideration of both financial and non-financial instruments in the context of intent. Let me start by saying that I agree with the conclusion in the paper that there are similarities between business model and intent. In fact I would argue that the concept of a business model requires intent. I do not disagree that the concept of a business model can be applied to groups of instruments and that the concept of intent can be applied to individual instruments. However, I would suggest that the business model concept can only be for groups of instruments, but that the concept of intent can apply to either groups or for individual instruments. Consistent with comments in IFRS 9, intent for a specific instrument should not undermine the business model for the overall group. I agree that it is easier to support intent-based accounting for financial instruments than non-financial instruments. Most importantly I believe that the use of the business model should be the primary driver for determining classification of financial instruments, as this provides the most relevant information to users of the accounts. For financial instruments, how management intends to use, dispose or settle an item is more important than basing measurement on the rights and obligations of that item. In my view, comparability between entities is not impeded. The business model approach is a more relevant indicator of potential cash flow impacts for financial instruments and the alignment to the internal management view should produce more relevant, and possibly even more reliable, information. Let us take the comparison between a trading loan portfolio and a retail loan portfolio. The underlying financial instruments are similar in terms of rights and obligations, yet their use by an entity is very different. To tell the accounting story as it is, it is best done in the context of