Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparable Neutrophil Responses for Arm and Intensity-matched Leg Exercise

Introduction Arm exercise is performed at lower absolute intensities than lower body exercise. This may impact on intensity-dependent neutrophil responses, and it is unknown whether individuals restricted to arm exercise experience the same changes in the neutrophil response as found for lower body exercise. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the importance of exercise modality and relative exercise intensity on the neutrophil response. Methods Twelve moderately trained men performed three 45-min constant load exercise trials after determination of peak oxygen uptake for arm exercise (V˙O2peak arms) and cycling (V˙O2peak legs): 1) arm cranking exercise at 60% V˙O2peak arms, 2) moderate cycling at 60% V˙O2peak legs, and 3) easy cycling at 60% V˙O2peak arms. Results Neutrophil numbers in the circulation increased for all exercise trials, but were significantly lower for easy cycling when compared with arm exercise (P = 0.009), mirroring the blunted increase in HR and epinephrine during easy cycling. For all trials, exercising HR explained some of the variation of the neutrophil number 2 h postexercise (R = 0.51–0.69), epinephrine explaining less of this variation (R = 0.21–0.34). The number of neutrophils expressing CXCR2 decreased in the recovery from exercise in all trials (P < 0.05). Conclusions Arm and leg exercise elicits the same neutrophil response when performed at the same relative intensity, implying that populations restricted to arm exercise might achieve a similar exercise induced neutrophil response as those performing lower body exercise. A likely explanation for this is the higher sympathetic activation and cardiac output for arm and relative intensity-matched leg exercise when compared with easy cycling, which is partly reflected in HR. This study further shows that the downregulation of CXCR2 may be implicated in exercise-induced neutrophilia.
Introduction Strategy for New Products with Positive and Negative Word-of-Mouth

Existing innovation diffusion models assume that individual experience with the product is always communicated positively through word-of-mouth. For certain innovations, however, this assumption is tenuous since communicators of the product experience may transfer favorable, unfavorable, or indifferent messages through word-of-mouth. This paper examines a diffusion model for products in which negative information plays a dominant role, discusses its implications for optimal advertising timing policy and presents an application to forecast attendance for the movie Gandhi in the Dallas area.
Mechanisms of Trazodone‐Induced Cytotoxicity and the Protective Effects of Melatonin and/or Taurine toward Freshly Isolated Rat Hepatocytes

It has been reported that the bioactive intermediate metabolites of trazodone might cause hepatotoxicity. This study was designed to investigate the exact mechanism of hepatocellular injury induced by trazodone as well as the protective effects of taurine and/or melatonin against this toxicity. Freshly isolated rat hepatocytes were used. Trazodone was cytotoxic and caused cell death with LC50 of 300 µm within 2 h. Trazodone caused an increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation, malondialdehyde accumulation, depletion of intracellular reduced glutathione (GSH), rise of oxidized glutathione disulfide (GSSG), and a decrease in mitochondrial membrane potential, which confirms the role of oxidative stress in trazodone‐induced cytotoxicity. Preincubation of hepatocytes with taurine prevented ROS formation, lipid peroxidation, depletion of intracellular reduced GSH, and increase of oxidized GSSG. Taurine could also protect mitochondria against trazodone‐induced toxicity. Administration of melatonin reduced the toxic effects of trazodone in isolated rat hepatocytes. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J BiochemMol Toxicol 27:457‐462, 2013; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/jbt.21509
The earnings effects of health and health-related activities: a panel data approach

We investigate the effects of health and health-related habits on earnings in China using panel data to control for unobserved heterogeneity related to individual traits and job characteristics. Health-related habits include smoking cigarettes, drinking tea, frequency of drinking alcohol and physical exercising. We find a significant and large impact of health status on earnings, controlling for schooling, experience and the unobserved individual heterogeneity and job heterogeneity. We also find that smoking has a strong negative effect on earnings net of health status, while the estimated effects of other health-related activities are statistically insignificant.
Série Scientifique Scientific Series the Econometrics of Option Pricing the Econometrics of Option Pricing

ASSOCIE A :. Institut de Finance Mathématique de Montréal (IFM 2). Laboratoires universitaires Bell Canada. Réseau de calcul et de modélisation mathématique [RCM 2 ]. Réseau de centres d'excellence MITACS (Les mathématiques des technologies de l'information et des systèmes complexes) Les cahiers de la série scientifique (CS) visent à rendre accessibles des résultats de recherche effectuée au CIRANO afin de susciter échanges et commentaires. Ces cahiers sont écrits dans le style des publications scientifiques. Les idées et les opinions émises sont sous l'unique responsabilité des auteurs et ne représentent pas nécessairement les positions du CIRANO ou de ses partenaires. This paper presents research carried out at CIRANO and aims at encouraging discussion and comment. The observations and viewpoints expressed are the sole responsibility of the authors. They do not necessarily represent positions of CIRANO or its partners. Résumé / Abstract Dans ce survol, nous passons en revue les modèles économétriques adaptés à l'inférence statistique sur données de prix d'options. Nous nous limitons aux options de type européen sur un indice de marché d'actions. Seules sont explicitées les techniques d'inférence statistique qui ont connu des développements spécifiques pour les données de prix d'options. L'accent est mis sur la modélisation. On commence par une synthèse des modèles en temps discret à partir du principe unificateur de facteur d'actualisation stochastique. Ceci nous permet de couvrir tant les modèles d'arbres multinomiaux que la valorisation risque neutre dans un contexte de log-normalité conditionnelle. L'extension aux mélanges de lois log-normales conduit aux modèles de volatilité stochastique, y compris les modèles avec effet de levier. Nos caractérisons les implications en termes de sourire de volatilité et montrons qu'elles sont pleinement similaires à celles d'un modèle de volatilité stochastique en temps continu. Nous passons ensuite aux modèles usuels en temps continu, notamment les modèles de diffusion avec sauts ou avec plusieurs facteurs non-linéaires, ainsi que les extensions avec processus de Lévy ou mémoire longue dans la volatilité. Nous abordons dans ce contexte les méthodes avec états implicites, à la fois paramétriques (maximum de vraisemblance) ou semiparamétriques (méthode des moments). Enfin, nous passons en revue les méthodes nonparamétriques qui permettent d'extraire directement les mesures de probabilité d'évaluation : canoniques, arbres binomiaux impliqués et approches semi-nonparamétriques (noyaux, réseaux de neurones et splines). Les implications en termes d'extraction des préférences sont aussi discutées. Mots clés : Dynamique des prix d'actions, modèles de diffusion-sauts à plusieurs variables, variables latentes, volatilité stochastique, distributions …
Nexus of Trade, Investment and Poverty: Evidence from Pakistan

Poverty alleviation, a complex multidimensional phenomenon, is among the most formidable challenges for policymakers in developing nation. Despite mixed results on the long term impact on poverty, the general view is that if implemented and managed carefully, trade and investment can help promote economic growth and alleviate poverty. The paper empirically examines the impact of trade and investment on poverty alleviation in Pakistan by employing the Johansen-Juselius (1990) approach to cointegration for a long run relation; and the error correction mechanism for the short run dynamics. The results suggest that poverty alleviation policy has brought fruition in Pakistan and helped achieve the objective both in the short and the long run. The findings should help policymakers determine appropriate strategy in addressing the economic growth vis-a-vis poverty. While investment is a key to promoting economic growth, trade openness can also help by improving business climate through access to modern capital and technical know-how; and lead to sustained economic growth in Pakistan.
Meet the Parents ? – The Causal Effect of Family Size on the Geographic Distance between Adult Children and Older Parenents 923 Discussion Papers

An emerging question in demographic economics is whether there is a link between family size and the geographic distance between adult children and elderly parents. Given current population trends, understanding how different configurations of family size and sibship influence patterns of child-parent proximity is vitally important, as it impacts on issues such as intergenerational care and everyday mobility. It may be the case, for example, that larger families enable the responsibility of care for older parents to be shared among more siblings, possibly decreasing individual involvement and relaxing constraints on geographic mobility. However, there is no causal evidence to date on this issue. This study is the first attempt to estimate the causal effect of sibship size on the geographic distance between older parents and adult children by using a large administrative data set from Sweden. We find a positive association between sibship size and child-parent geographic distance. However, when we use multiple births and sibship sex composition as instruments for family size, we do not find any evidence that the observed positive relationship represents a causal effect. Given that family sizes are continuing to fall in many developed countries, our findings suggest that the trend towards smaller families will not necessarily result in adult children being more constrained in terms of their geographic location decisions, at least in countries with extensive state-provision of elderly care.
Revisiting the Relation between the Default Risk of Debt and the Earnings Response Coefficient

Theory suggests that earnings response coefficients (ERCs) are positively associated with expected earnings growth and negatively associated with equity risk. Dhaliwal and Reynolds (1994) (DR) hypothesize that equity beta fails to capture a default risk component of equity risk and demonstrate that ERCs are negatively associated with two measures of default risk—bond ratings and debt/equity ratios—in a regression model that contains equity beta. Bond ratings and debt/equity ratios are associated with expected earnings growth. This paper examines how the association between ERCs and default risk is impacted by the inclusion of expected earnings growth in the model. The relation between ERCs and bond ratings is not significant, while the association between ERCs and debt/equity ratios is weakened but is still significant. These findings suggest part of the reason for the negative association between ERCs and default risk in DR is that their default risk proxies also reflect expected earnings growth. In fact.
Statistical Evaluation of the Regulatory Guidelines for Use of Furosemide in Race Horses

Summary. The pharmacokinetic behavior of furosemide concentrations in performance horses is of great interest to the equine industry and equine researchers. Specifically, such information is useful for the evaluation of the existing guidelines in several racing jurisdictions and for the possible development of new guidelines for varying time periods after administration. We studied several approaches within the framework of nonlinear mixed effects models to increase the accuracy of evaluating these guidelines. Theoretical properties of the proposed methods were examined and the variances of the resulting estimators compared. Their numerical performances were further evaluated through simulations. Finally, we applied these methods to a furosemide concentration profile data set and used our findings to address certain important practical issues.
Validated programmed cell death ligand 1 immunohistochemistry assays (E1L3N and SP142) reveal similar immune cell staining patterns in melanoma when using the same sensitive detection system

Tumour cell and/or immune cell programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD‐L1) expression is considered as a potential biomarker for anti‐PD1 and anti‐PD‐L1 immunotherapy. Currently, different PD‐L1 assays are used. This study aims to compare the staining patterns of two PD‐L1 antibody clones in melanoma metastases and correlate them with PD‐L1 mRNA expression.
Understanding Civil War: A Comparison of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

Abstract In order to explain why civil war erupted in Tajikistan but not in Uzbekistan this article assesses a range of theories that have sought to explain the occurrence of civil wars. After assessing the strengths and weaknesses of a number of these different existing approaches in the comparative literature, it argues that the eruption of civil war in Tajikistan and its absence in Uzbekistan can be explained by adapting ideas from bargaining theories of war that have been developed in the literature on international relations. It argues that it is important to study the adversaries' perceptions of power in relation to the actions that led to the civil war and how the perceptions of the distribution of power are influenced by structural, process and network-related variables. Consistent with bargaining theories of war, a disparity between the distribution of power and distribution of benefits seems an important factor in the eruption of civil war in Tajikistan.
Human PDCD2L Is an Export Substrate of CRM1 That Associates with 40S Ribosomal Subunit Precursors

ABSTRACT Protein arginine methyltransferase 3 (PRMT3) forms a stable complex with 40S ribosomal protein S2 (RPS2) and contributes to ribosome biogenesis. However, the molecular mechanism by which PRMT3 influences ribosome biogenesis and/or function still remains unclear. Using quantitative proteomics, we identified human programmed cell death 2-like (PDCD2L) as a novel PRMT3-associated protein. Our data suggest that RPS2 promotes the formation of a conserved extraribosomal complex with PRMT3 and PDCD2L. We also show that PDCD2L associates with 40S subunit precursors that contain a 3′-extended form of the 18S rRNA (18S-E pre-rRNA) and several pre-40S maturation factors. PDCD2L shuttles between the nucleus and the cytoplasm in a CRM1-dependent manner using a leucine-rich nuclear export signal that is sufficient to direct the export of a reporter protein. Although PDCD2L is not required for the biogenesis and export of 40S ribosomal subunits, we found that PDCD2L-null cells accumulate free 60S ribosomal subunits, which is indicative of a deficiency in 40S subunit availability. Our data also indicate that PDCD2L and its paralog, PDCD2, function redundantly in 40S ribosomal subunit production. Our findings uncover the existence of an extraribosomal complex consisting of PDCD2L, RPS2, and PRMT3 and support a role for PDCD2L in the late maturation of 40S ribosomal subunits.
Temperature-Dependent Photoluminescence Emission from Unstrained and Strained GaSe Nanosheets

Two-dimensional AIIIBVI layered semiconductors have recently attracted great attention due to their potential applications in piezo-phototronics and optoelectronics. Here, we report the temperature-dependent photoluminescence (PL) of strained and unstrained GaSe flakes. It is found that, as the temperature increases, the PL from both the strained (wrinkled) and unstrained (flat) positions show a prominent red-shift to low energies. However, for the flat case, the slope of PL energy versus temperature at the range of 163–283 K is about −0.36 meV/K, which is smaller than that of the wrinkled one (−0.5 meV/K). This is because more strain can be introduced at the freestanding wrinkled position during the temperature increase, thus accelerates the main PL peak (peak I, direct band gap transition) shift to lower energy. Additionally, for the wrinkled sheet, three new exciton states (peaks III, IV, and V) appear at the red side of peak I, and the emission intensity is highly dependent on the temperature variation. These peaks can be attributed to the bound exciton recombination. These findings demonstrate an interesting route for optical band gap tuning of the layered GaSe sheet, which are important for future optoelectronic device design.
A Stock-Flow Accounting Model of the Labor Market: An Application to Israel

Since the early 2000s the unemployment rate in Israel has declined steadily at comparable points in the business cycle. We evaluate the extent to which this development reflects variation in business cycle intensity versus changes in noncyclical factors. To that end we utilize a theoretical flow-accounting model, similar to Blanchard and Diamond (1989), to study the dynamics of unemployment and vacancies in response to cyclical and non-cyclical changes in the labor market. We then use insights from the model as identifying restrictions on a structural VAR system in unemployment, vacancies and the labor force. The impulse response functions of the empirical model are in line with the predictions of the theoretical model. In particular, cyclical fluctuations, interpreted as aggregate activity shocks, move unemployment and vacancies in opposite directions, giving rise to the Beveridge curve, while structural movements, interpreted as changes in the average efficiency of matching unemployed workers to vacant jobs and developments in labor supply, shift the Beveridge curve. Our estimates suggest that non-cyclical factors have accounted for at least half of the decline of the unemployment rate during the period between 2004-Q1, when unemployment peaked at 10.9 percent, and 2011-Q4, when it marked a trough at 5.4 percent; suggesting a shift inward of the Beveridge curve.
Multicenter Evaluation of Bactec MGIT 960 System for Second-Line Drug Susceptibility Testing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex

ABSTRACT The Bactec MGIT 960 system for testing susceptibility to second-line drugs was evaluated with 117 clinical strains in a multicenter study. The four drugs studied were levofloxacin, amikacin, capreomycin, and ethionamide. The critical concentration established for levofloxacin and amikacin was 1.5 μg/ml, that established for capreomycin was 3.0 μg/ml, and that established for ethionamide was 5.0 μg/ml. The overall level of agreement between the agar proportion method and the MGIT 960 system was 96.4%, and the levels of agreement for the individuals drugs were 99.1% for levofloxacin, 100% for amikacin, 97.4% for capreomycin, and 88.9% for ethionamide. The rate of reproducibility of the drug susceptibility testing results between the participating laboratories was 99.5%.
Electoral Institutions and Distributive Policies in Parliamentary Systems: An Application to State Aid Measures in EU Countries

Electoral institutions should systematically affect the propensity of a country to rely and spend on distributive measures. Supporting evidence is however still rare because of the difficulty in finding comparable cross-national data, the employment of dummy variables to account for the electoral systems, and the failure to recognise the interacting effects of different electoral rules on policy outcomes. Employing national data on state aid expenditure and a number of measures across European Union countries, the article provides evidence that legislators elected in higher magnitude districts spend less. More interestingly, it shows the interlocking policy effects of electoral institutions. Where high district magnitude is combined with ballot control, party-based voting and pooling, these rules conjunctly dampen politicians’ incentives to cultivate a personal vote and lead to lower spending on, and use of, distributive measures. Where high district magnitude is not combined with these rules, results are inconclusive. With one exception though, if leaders do not have control over the ballot rank, higher magnitude increases reliance on distributive measures. Results are robust to several alternative political-economy explanations of fiscal policy outcomes.
Criteria affecting people's decision to take protective measures during winter storm XAVER on 5 December 2013

This paper discusses the impact of different dimensions of risk perception on people’s decision to take protective measures against natural hazards. Initial basis of the analysis was the winter storm XAVER which affected huge parts of Northern Europe including Berlin, Germany on 5 December 2013. Preliminary results of a representative online survey within the Berlin population show that affective variables such as fear of severe weather and confidence in weather forecasts showed a significant effect on people’s decision to take protective action. Contrary, high experience of natural hazards did not necessarily lead to action.
Has India emerged? Business cycle facts from a transitioning economy

This paper presents a comprehensive set of stylised facts for business cycles in India from 1950 - 2009. We find that the nature of the business cycle has changed dramatically after India's liberalisation reforms in 1991. In particular, after the the mid 1990s, the properties of India's business cycle has moved closer in key respects to select advanced countries. This is consistent with India's structural transformation from a pre-dominantly agricultural and planned developing economy to a more mar- ket based industrial-income economy. We also identify in what respects the behaviour of the Indian business cycle is different from that of other advanced economies, and closer to that of other less developed economies. This is the first exercise of this kind to generate an exhaustive set of stylised facts for India using both annual and quarterly data.
Public Reactions to Policy Recommendations from the Banff-Bow Valley Study: A Longitudinal Assessment

The Banff-Bow Valley Study (BBVS), a two-year, $2.4 million project designed to formulate guidelines for the future of a major National Parks region in the Canadian Rockies, provided a comprehensive set of over 500 policy recommendations for enhancing ecological integrity and managing sustainable tourism in this popular, environmentally sensitive destination (Page et al., 1996). For these recommendations to be implemented effectively, support from a broad range of stakeholders in the Canadian citizenry is essential. Surprisingly, the BBVS itself did not explore public attitudes towards its final recommendations. In an attempt to overcome this shortcoming, the present authors undertook to assess the degree of public support for the major recomm endations of the BBVS. The total assessment consisted of a two-phase longitudinal study. Phase 1 was conducted in 1996, following the release of the BBVS recommendations. Phase 2, which sought to verify the stability of the initial results, was conducted in 2000. W hile some shifts in public support were identified, the most significant findings of Phase 1 were verified. The total study identified those recommendations most likely to be accepted or rejected by Canadians.
Potential of pmoA Amplicon Pyrosequencing for Methanotroph Diversity Studies

ABSTRACT We analyzed the potential of pmoA amplicon pyrosequencing compared to that of Sanger sequencing with paddy soils as a model environment. We defined operational taxonomic unit (OTU) cutoff values of 7% and 18%, reflecting methanotrophic species and major phylogenetic pmoA lineages, respectively. Major lineages were already well covered by clone libraries; nevertheless, pyrosequencing provided a higher level of diversity at the species level.