Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cytochrome P450-mediated oxidation of pentafluorophenol to tetrafluorobenzoquinone as the primary reaction product.

In the present study the oxidative dehalogenation of a para-halogenated phenol was studied using pentafluorophenol and its non-para-halogenated analogue 2,3,5,6-tetrafluorophenol as model compounds. 19F NMR was used to characterize the metabolite patterns. In order to study the primary oxidation products of the microsomal cytochrome P450-catalyzed conversion, the alternative oxygen donors cumene hydroperoxide (CumOOH) and iodosobenzene (IOB) were used in addition to the use of NADPH and molecular oxygen. In a NADPH/oxygen-driven reaction, but also in a CumOOH- or IOB-driven cytochrome P450 reaction, tetrafluorophenol was converted to tetrafluorohydroquinone. However, for pentafluorophenol, the formation of tetrafluorohydroquinone as a product of its cytochrome P450-mediated conversion was only observed in the NADPH-driven system. Addition of reducing equivalents such as NADH to the CumOOH or IOB incubations resulted in the formation of tetrafluorohydroquinone. From these data it was concluded that the primary reaction product of the cytochrome P450-catalyzed conversion of pentafluorophenol is a reactive species that can be reduced to tetrafluorohydroquinone by NAD(P)H and, thus, must be tetrafluorobenzoquinone. Additional experiments with tetrafluorobenzoquinone, incubated in vitro with either microsomal protein or glutathione in the presence or absence of reducing equivalents, demonstrated that the tetrafluorobenzoquinone ends up bound to proteins, losing its fluorine atoms as fluoride anions. Thus, while cytochrome P450-mediated conversion of the 2,3,5,6-tetrafluorophenol results in the formation of tetrafluorohydroquinone as the primary reaction product, monooxygenation at a fluorinated para position, such as in pentafluorophenol, results in the formation of the reactive tetrafluorobenzoquinone derivative as the primary reaction product. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Sources of economic fluctuations in oil‐exporting economies: implications for choice of exchange rate regimes

If a country is dependent on one particular export commodity, what exchange rate policy should it follow? Surprisingly, there is no standard textbook prescription for such a country. In theory, rigidly pegging exchange rates to those of the developed economies allow emerging markets to fix the price of tradable goods and import monetary policy credibility leading to greater macroeconomic stability. The corollary being that countries lose their ability to react independently to domestic economic concerns. Nowhere are these macroeconomic policy dilemmas currently more acute than for emerging market oil-exporting economies, with their pegged exchange rates making it difficult to adjust to swings in the high price of crude oil. This paper investigates whether through rigidly fixing the exchange rate it is now the case that the disadvantages associated with importing a monetary policy ill-suited to the need of oil-exporting countries, now outweigh the gains from importing US monetary policy. The results in this paper show that pegged regimes are poor at insulating emerging market commodity-dependent economies from real shocks, in particular terms-of-trade disturbances. Allowing for caveats, the results show that greater macroeconomic stability could be fostered in emerging market oil-exporting economies by allowing for greater flexibility in their exchange rate regimes. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Half of the world’s population experience robust changes in the water cycle for a 2 °C warmer world

Fresh water is a critical resource on Earth, yet projections of changes in the water cycle resulting from anthropogenic warming are challenging. It is important to not only know the best estimate of change, but also how robust these projections are, where changes occur, which variables will change, and how many people are affected by it. Here we synthesize the changes in the water cycle, based on results of the latest climate model intercomparison (CMIP5). Several variables of the water cycle, such as evaporation and relative humidity, show robust changes over more than 50% of the land area already with an anthropogenic global warming of 1 °C. A warming of 2 °C shows more than half of the world’s population to be directly affected by robust local changes in the water cycle, and everybody experiences a robust change in at least one variable of the water cycle. While the physical changes are widespread, the affected people are concentrated in a few hot-spots mainly in Asia and Central Africa. The occurrence of these hot-spots is driven by population density, as well as by the early emergence of the anthropogenic signal from variability in these areas. Large uncertainties remain in projections of soil moisture and runoff changes.
Business angels and value added: what do we know and where do we go?

Business angels have been highlighted as important stakeholders for potential high-growth ventures. Extant empirical research provides evidence that they not only contribute with money but also bring added value to the ventures in which they have invested. However, despite the reported benefits of the value added provided by these investors there are very few studies that try to conceptualize this important issue. The present study seeks to meet this shortcoming by presenting a review of literature and research on business angels and value added. The overall objective is to recognize the range of value added activities that business angels have been reported to perform, aggregate the findings into a set of distinct but complementary value adding roles, and then link these roles to theoretical perspectives that explain why they have the potential to contribute to added value. Four different value added roles performed by informal investors are presented together with an explanation of how they can be seen as complementary to each other. The following discussion is then used to guide future studies of business angels and value added towards areas where our knowledge is still limited.
Social Network Analysis: An Introduction 1

Social network analysis takes as its starting point the premise that social life is created primarily and most importantly by relations and the patterns formed by these relations. Social networks are formally defined as a set of nodes (or network members) that are tied by one or more types of relations (Wasserman and Faust, 1994). Because network analysts take these networks as the primary building blocks of the social world, they not only collect unique types of data, they begin their analyses from a fundamentally different perspective than that adopted by individualist or attribute-based social science.
Sparks: coherence as an abstract type

Sparks is a protocol construction framework that treats records of coherence actions as abstract types. Sparks' central abstraction is the coherence history, an object that summarizes past coherence actions to shared segments. Histories provide high-level access to coherence guarantees. The author motivates his work by discussing synchronization design in distributed shared memory systems, and shows how histories can be used to cleanly create more efficient synchronization than is currently used.
The Meal Experiences of á la Carte Restaurant Customers

The research presented in this article focuses on factors that form customers' meal experiences in á la Carte restaurants. The intention of the study is to reveal new aspects of the meal experience from the customers' points of view based on empirical data. Following a modified version of grounded theory approach, empirical data are based on seven semi‐structured interviews of experienced restaurant customers in two Norwegian cities. A main result of the study is the development of an overall conceptual model that integrates the most important meal experience categories revealed. The five main categories are the core product, the restaurant interior, the personal social meeting, the company, and the restaurant atmosphere. The study generally offers an increased understanding of the complexity of customers' meal experiences. The knowledge gained from this study may give restaurateurs a better understanding of and insight into important factors about the customers' choices of restaurants. It also offers indications of what to focus on in the desire to influence the perceived service quality of restaurant visits. Finally, it could be useful as a basis for a future quantitative study to test the validity of the categories developed.
Middle Schooling. An Exploration of Practice in the Light of Theory.

This paper describes the development of an evaluative framework, built upon the foundation of the General Design for Whole School Improvement, which has been used to explore the beliefs and attitudes of stakeholders of three middle schools in the ACT. The results of the evaluation affirm the schools in their achievements of many of the desired outcomes of effective ‘middle schooling’, but identify some areas of concern.
Introduction: European integration and national political systems

The process of European integration has been studied and analysed at great length in a variety of academic disciplines. The main focus of this endeavour is usually to try to explain institution-building, policy integration or policy outputs at the European level. In the main theories of integration, domestic politics is a central explanatory factor of the integration process. For example, in the early 'neo-functionalist' theory of Ernst Haas and his followers, one of the driving forces of the delegation of policy functions to the European level was the battle between domestic interest groups, political parties and rival groups of elites. In the contemporary 'liberalintergovernmental' approach of Andrew Moravcsik, the integration process is driven by competition and bargaining between the European nationstates, but 'national' preferences emerge from the on-going processes of domestic politics, where rival interests compete for control of the policy agenda.
Putting the brakes on cancer cell migration

Junctional Adhesion Molecule A (JAM-A) is a member of the Ig superfamily of membrane proteins expressed in platelets, leukocytes, endothelial cells and epithelial cells. We have previously shown that in endothelial cells, JAM-A regulates basic fibroblast growth factor, (FGF-2)-induced angiogenesis via augmenting endothelial cell migration. Recently, we have revealed that in breast cancer cells, down-regulation of JAM-A enhances cancer cell migration and invasion. Further, ectopic expression of JAM-A in highly metastatic MDA-MB-231 cells attenuates cell migration, and down-regulation of JAM-A in low-metastatic T47D cells enhance migration. Interestingly, JAM-A expression is greatly diminished as breast cancer disease progresses. The molecular mechanism of this function of JAM-A is beyond its well-characterized barrier function at the tight junction. Our results point out that JAM-A differentially regulates migration of endothelial and cancer cells.
Retina Restored and Brain Abnormalities Ameliorated by Single-Copy Knock-In of Human NR2E1 in Null Mice

ABSTRACT Nr2e1 encodes a stem cell fate determinant of the mouse forebrain and retina. Abnormal regulation of this gene results in retinal, brain, and behavioral abnormalities in mice. However, little is known about the functionality of human NR2E1. We investigated this functionality using a novel knock-in humanized-mouse strain carrying a single-copy bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC). We also documented, for the first time, the expression pattern of the human BAC, using an NR2E1-lacZ reporter strain. Unexpectedly, cerebrum and olfactory bulb hypoplasia, hallmarks of the Nr2e1-null phenotype, were not fully corrected in animals harboring one functional copy of human NR2E1. These results correlated with an absence of NR2E1-lacZ reporter expression in the dorsal pallium of embryos and proliferative cells of adult brains. Surprisingly, retinal histology and electroretinograms demonstrated complete correction of the retina-null phenotype. These results correlated with appropriate expression of the NR2E1-lacZ reporter in developing and adult retina. We conclude that the human BAC contained all the elements allowing correction of the mouse-null phenotype in the retina, while missing key regulatory regions important for proper spatiotemporal brain expression. This is the first time a separation of regulatory mechanisms governing NR2E1 has been demonstrated. Furthermore, candidate genomic regions controlling expression in proliferating cells during neurogenesis were identified.
Monoclonal Expansion with Integration of High-Risk Type Human Papillomaviruses Is an Initial Step for Cervical Carcinogenesis: Association of Clonal Status and Human Papillomavirus Infection with Clinical Outcome in Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia

To define the natural history of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) as related to clonal status, we evaluated 20 cases of CIN1 and 18 cases of CIN2 that had been clinically followed for 7 to 48 months at Osaka University Hospital. These included 10 cases that progressed, 15 cases that persisted, and 13 cases that regressed. We analyzed the clonal status of each case by analysis of the pattern of X-chromosomal inactivation. Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection was detected by PCR-RFLP analysis. CINs that are monoclonal or infected by high-risk HPVs are more likely to progress or persist than cases that are polyclonal or negative for high-risk HPVs (p = 0.009 for monoclonal vs polyclonal, p = 0.024 for high-risk HPV positive vs negative p = 0.024). Eighteen (90%) of 20 monoclonal, high-risk HPV-associated CINs progressed or persisted, whereas 9 (60%) of 15 polyclonal or high-risk HPV-negative CINs regressed. Therefore, the combination of clonality status and high-risk type HPV infection was significantly correlated with clinical outcome (p = 0.003). The physical status of the HPV genome was evaluated in 17 cases of HPV-16 positive CINs by real-time PCR. Of those, the HPV viral genome was present in both episomal and integrated forms in 14 CINs (84%), and 12 of these cases (86%) were monoclonal in composition. By contrast, all three CINs in which the HPV genome was present in episomal form were polyclonal. In one CIN1 that was polyclonal, HPV-16 was originally present in episomal form but after 24 months, the patient developed a monoclonal CIN3 in which the HPV-16 genome was present in mixed form. These results may imply that HPV viral integration into the host genomic DNA is associated with progression from polyclonal to monoclonal status in CIN. These events may play a fundamental role in the progression from low-grade to higher grade dysplasia of the cervical mucosa.
The Use of Future-Oriented Knowledge in Regional Innovation Processes: Research on Knowledge Generation, Transfer & Conversion

This article focuses on future-oriented knowledge within regional innovation networks. Concrete regional tools and institutional settings aiming to enhance knowledge creation and management in such networks are needed. To enable planning for the future, there is a need for regional visionary capability. Resource-based futures research may make an important contribution in reducing the insecurity that regions face in the turbulent environment. When foresight processes are not absorbed into the regional strategy making processes, ‘black holes of regional strategy making’ come into existence, and future scenarios are built without taking into consideration the path-dependency of a region. This article attempts to reduce the gap between futures research, on the one hand, and regional knowledge and innovation management, on the other hand. It highlights the concept of selftranscending knowledge—the ability to sense the presence of potential. It then introduces a new, systemic model for knowledge creation and management in regional innovation networks. Utilising methods from futures research in creating self-transcending knowledge in a regional knowledge management system is proposed as a fruitful way of enhancing regional visionary capability. The article thus advocates combining approaches and methodologies from futures research with those of knowledge management in a novel way. q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 0016-3287/$ see front matter q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.futures. 2005.01. 001 Futures 37 (2005) 849–866 www.elsevier. com/locate/futures * Chapters 1, 3 and 4 of the paper are partly based on a paper presented at an International Conference of Regional Studies Association (UK), 12–15 April 2003, at Pisa, Italy. * Corresponding author. Tel. : C358 3 525 000; fax: C358 3 525 0204. E-mail addresses: tuomo.uotila@hut.fi (T. Uotila), helina.melkas@hut.fi (H. Melkas), vesa.harmaakorpi@ lut.fi (V. Harmaakorpi). URL: http://ltk.hut.fi. 1 Present address: Lappeenranta University of Technology, Lahti Unit, Saimaankatu 11, FI-15140 Lahti. Finland.
Does corporate ownership structure affect firms' environmental performance? Evidence in the European energy industry

The present paper aims to explore the mutual influence existing between corporate ownership structure and firms' environmental performance. The attention is focused on the energy industry, that represents one of the industries with the highest environmental impact and that, in the last few years, has been forced to increase efforts towards green issues. In particular, the introduction of vertical unbundling in electricity and gas markets provides the opportunity to concentrate the attention on European energy companies operating in service activities, in which it is possible to better understand firms' environmental performance. The study, performing a linear regression model, examines the explanatory power of corporate governance issues, in particular firms' ownership structure, as potential determinants of companies' environmental performance. The results show that firms with more diffuse ownership present the worst environmental performance, while greater stakes held by institutional investors or by the state do not seem to be related with firms' green performance.
Multiparameter analysis of human oocytes at metaphase II stage after IVF failure in non-male infertility.

BACKGROUND Using fluorescence imaging, an a posteriori multiparametric analysis was performed of human oocytes which failed to give pronucleated zygotes after IVF in cases of very low rates of fertilization or complete fertilization failure. METHODS The analysis included: (i) the state of the maternal and paternal chromatin; (ii) quality of the metaphase II oocytes; and (iii) cortical granule (CG) distribution. RESULTS Most oocytes were arrested in metaphase II, but they were abnormal in 50% of cases. The incidence of spindle and chromosome aberrations was strongly influenced by maternal age (69% for 40- to 45-year-old women versus 35% for 26- to 33-year-olds), and sperm chromatin was always condensed in immature oocytes, and fully decondensed only in normal metaphase II. The migration of CGs appeared to be associated with achievement of nuclear maturation at the time of puncture. CONCLUSIONS These factors, when analysed on a complete set of oocytes from the same patient, provided information about potential causes of IVF failure, and also represented part of an 'oocyte quality evaluation' to select the assisted fertilization technique most suitable for each patient. For example, when the majority of oocytes were judged non-fertilizable at a first attempt, no pregnancy was registered at any subsequent attempt.
Forecasting volatility in the financial markets: a comparison of alternative distributional assumptions

This article analyses the volatility forecasting performance of the GARCH models based on various distributional assumptions in the context of stock market indices and exchange rate returns. Using rollover methods to construct the out-of-the-sample volatility forecasts, this study shows that the GARCH model combined with the logistic distribution, the scaled student's t distribution and the Riskmetrics model are preferable both in stock markets and foreign exchange markets. The exponential power and the mixture of two normal distributions are, however, less recommended. Furthermore, a complex distribution does not always outperform a simpler one, although the exact ranking depends on the application of underlying assets and the performance statistics being used.
Institutions, Inertia and European Union Research Policy

Explanations of the failure of integration are a natural preserve of intergovernmentalism. It is not difficult to blame the failure to integrate on recalcitrant states - and they are in fact often largely responsible. This article examines how European institutions can impede deeper integration. It sets out an analytical framework that distinguishes three pathways of institutional resistance to change, and applies the framework to the case of EU research policy. In the face of American scientific and technological superiority, European leaders have long articulated the goal of better research policy co-ordination. But distinct national research policies persist; no significant supranational integration has taken place. The institutionalization of EU research policy in the framework programme (FP) - a funding stream for researchers alongside much larger national programmes - is part of the reason. Since the 1980s, increasingly large and complex programmes have absorbed the administrative and political energies of the Commission and generated clienteles attached to the status quo. European institutional legacies, and not simply national interests, have undercut efforts to create a 'European Research Area' marked by the better co-ordination and integration of national policies.
Analysis of the Seven Dimensions of Knowledge Management in Organizations

This study aims to identify critical elements in Knowledge Management in companies in the second and third sectors of the economy of the region of Campos Gerais, Parana, Brazil. This is a cross-sectional survey. The sample consisted of 191 workers. To collect the data, a social scale developed by Terra (1999) was used. It was found that the critical elements are, in order of relevance: human resource management; organizational structure; organizational culture and values; information and communication systems; learning through the environment; strategic factors; the role of senior management, and the measurement of results. It is concluded that for most organizations to reach the condition of a learning organization several critical elements need to be overcome.
Regimen changes and duration in the European Monetary System

This article examines the regime changes in the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) of the European Monetary System (EMS), applying the duration model approach to weekly data of eight currencies participating in the ERM, covering the complete EMS history. When using the non-parametric (univariate) analysis, it was found that for those regimens with long durations, the ERM would have been relatively stable, while for the (more common) regimes associated with short durations would have been more unstable. The probability of maintaining a certain regime is estimated to be 0.685. When applying a parametric (multivariate) analysis to investigate the role of other variables in the probability of a regime change, it is concluded that the interest rate differential with Germany and the magnitude of the realignment would have negatively affected the duration of a given regime, while credibility would have positively influenced such duration. Finally, when distinguishing between groups of currencies, it is observed that those in the core are more stable than those in the periphery, obtaining evidence against equality of survival functions among these groups of currencies.