Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regulatory mechanisms of monofunctional and bifunctional anticarcinogenic enzyme inducers in murine liver.

Anticarcinogenic enzyme inducers are of two types: (a) bifunctional inducers [2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, polycyclic aromatics, azo dyes, beta-naphthoflavone] that elevate both Phase II enzymes [e.g., glutathione S-transferases, UDP-glucuronosyltransferases, and NAD(P)H:(quinone-acceptor) oxidoreductase] and certain Phase I enzymes [e.g., aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase (AHH)]; and (b) monofunctional inducers [e.g., diphenols, thiocarbamates, 1,2-dithiol-3-thiones, isothiocyanates] that elevate primarily Phase II enzymes without significantly affecting AHH. Since Phase I enzymes such as AHH may activate precarcinogens to ultimate carcinogens whereas Phase II enzyme induction suffices to achieve chemoprotection, an understanding of the molecular mechanisms that regulate these enzymes is critical for devising methods for chemoprotection. We report a systematic analysis of the inductions of aryl hydrocarbon hydroxylase (AHH) and NAD(P)H:quinone reductase (QR) by seven monofunctional and eight bifunctional inducers, singly or in combination, in a murine hepatoma cell line (Hepa 1c1c7) and two mutants defective in either Ah (Aryl hydrocarbon) receptor function (BPrc1) or in AHH expression (c1). We have also examined such inductions in genetically defined mouse strains with high affinity (C57BL/6J) and low affinity (DBA/2J) Ah receptors. The combination of our earlier model for the induction of Phase I and Phase II enzymes (H. J. Prochaska, M. J. De Long, and P. Talalay, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 82: 8232, 1985) with mechanism(s) for autoregulation of AHH (O. Hankinson, R. D. Anderson, B. W. Birren, F. Sander, M. Negishi, and D. W. Nebert, J. Biol. Chem., 260: 1790, 1985) is compatible with our results. Thus, induction of QR by monofunctional inducers does not depend on a competent Ah receptor or AHH activity and appears to involve an electrophilic chemical signal. In contrast, bifunctional inducers require competent Ah receptors to induce both AHH and QR, although the latter process appears to be regulated by more than one mechanism. It is our view that bifunctional inducers bind to the Ah receptor thereby enhancing transcription of genes encoding both AHH and QR. Metabolizable bifunctional inducers are then converted by the induced AHH to products that resemble monofunctional inducers and are capable of generating the aforementioned chemical signal. The existence of mechanism(s) for AHH autoregulation that also affect Phase II enzyme expression would account for the high basal activities of QR in the AHH-defective mutant (c1).
Histology in Experimental Peritoneal Dialysis: The Link between Structure and Function

icroscopic observation offers the possibility to in-vestigate the relationship between structure andfunction of the peritoneum as a living dialyzing mem-brane. The most commonly used complementary tech-niques are transmission electron microscopy (TEM) andlight microscopy, the latter applied to imprints of themesothelial monolayer and/or to biopsy samples of theperitoneum.This short review will offer some examples indicativeof the relevance and assortment of information that canbe acquired using these techniques.
MHS: A Multimedia System for Improving Medication Adherence in Elderly Care

Due to its proven capability in customizing information according to the patients' needs, multimedia has been regarded as a promising technology for home healthcare. In this paper, we present our study on improving medication adherence of the elderly with the support of ubiquitous multimedia services. A multimedia healthcare system (MHS) is built based on a comprehensive understanding of the requirements of the elderly care. It provides the continuous medication monitoring, context aware prompting, adaptive multimedia presentation, and flexible medicine management. The experimental results show that the MHS can improve the medication adherence of the elderly effectively.
An exploratory study of business angels in China: a research note

There have been a number of studies shedding light on the characteristics of business angels and their investment behavior across the world, but few are in the Chinese context. This study provides an initial profile of Chinese business angels via a questionnaire survey. Based on a sample of 78 respondents, this paper describes the characteristics and investment behavior of business angels in China. An international comparison is made between the findings reported in this paper and those from the USA, the UK, Japan, Singapore, the Philippines, and Thailand. Chinese business angels are comparable to those in foreign countries in terms of age, educational background and business experience. The key differences lie in the fact that Chinese business angels are not all high net worth individuals and are less involved in hands-on involvement, having large-sized investments and co-investing in many of the deals within their cities with a short holding period.
Energy Conservation "Nudges" and Environmentalist Ideology: Evidence from a Randomized Residential Electricity Field Experiment

“Nudges” are being widely promoted to encourage energy conservation. We show that the popular electricity conservation “nudge” of providing feedback to households on own and peers’ home electricity usage in a home electricity report is two to four times more effective with political liberals than with conservatives. Political conservatives are more likely than liberals to opt out of receiving the home electricity report and to report disliking the report. Our results suggest that energy conservation nudges need to be targeted to be most effective.
Short forms to assess life quality and symptom distress for urinary incontinence in women: The incontinence impact questionnaire and the urogenital distress inventory

This article describes short form versions of the Incontinence Impact Questionnaire (IIQ) and the Urogenital Distress Inventory (UDI). These instruments assess life impact and symptom distress, respectively, of urinary incontinence and related conditions for women. All subsets regression analysis was used to find item subsets that best approximated scores of the long form versions. The approach succeeded in reducing the 30‐item IIQ and the 19‐item UDI to 7‐ and 6 item short forms, respectively. The short form versions may be more useful than the long form versions in many clinical and research applications. © 1995 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Institutional Positioning in Growth States: Influencers and Strategies of Enrollment Managers at Public Research Universities

Enrollment management practices, principles, and administrative structure are changing the behavior of the contemporary university. Through an examination of public Carnegie Research Intensive and Extensive universities in states anticipating growth in the high school graduate population, the study seeks to provide a greater understanding of enrollment management. The theoretical lenses of institutional theory (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983), resource dependence (Tolbert, 1985), and academic capitalism (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997; Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004), are employed to develop a new view of administrative behavior in current enrollment management organizations. In depth interviews with the individuals leading enrollment efforts at selected universities identify the enrollment manager as an administrator, educator, and entrepreneur. These individuals operate in complex political environments balancing their personal educational philosophies with the needs of their universities. Comprehensive reviews of the strategic enrollment plans at study universities reveal three main goals across all institutions: maintaining financial stability, increasing student and institutional quality, and increasing student diversity. Administrative behavior shows that all three goals are not treated equally and that revenue enhancement activities are prioritized. The administrative behaviors detailed in this study suggest a new ideology related to revenue enhancement for public higher education in the United States.
Land Values and the 1957 Comprehensive Amendment to the Chicago Zoning Ordinance

In 1957 Chicago enacted a Comprehensive Amendment to the Chicago Zoning Ordiance of 1923. In contrast to the hierarchical zoning of the 1923 ordinance, the 1957 ordinance made each zoning category exclusive and mandated the removal of non-conforming uses. This study examines land parcels at the borders between residential and non-residential (commercial or manufacturing) zones, and finds that land values in non-residential zones enjoyed a one-time jump in growth over the time-period 1955—58 during which the 1957 ordinance was adopted. No significant change is detected in land value growth in residential zones. These results suggest that non-residential landowners valued the insurance that the 1957 ordinance provided against mixed land uses more than the value of the option to change land use that was terminated.
Middle‐Class Welfare and Vertical Redistribution in Australia: A Fiscal Incidence Analysis

type="main" xml:lang="en"> ‘Middle-class welfare’ has been a catch-cry in Australian political debate in recent years, the suggestion being that redistributive programs have unduly benefited the ‘middle class’. However, the concept suffers from a lack of definition and the proposition from a shortage of empirical evidence and a rather selective focus. This article uses Australian Bureau of Statistics' fiscal incidence studies to track trends from 1984 to 2010. From this more comprehensive assessment of ‘who gets what’, we find that not only has there been no shift of net social support towards middle-income groups, but the opposite is true: vertical redistribution has been strengthened.
Refining AI Methods for Medical Diagnostics Management

This paper extends the utility of support vector machines—a recent innovation in AI being adopted for cancer diagnostics—by analytically modelling the impact of imperfect class labelling of training data. It uses ROC computations to study the SVM's ability to classify new examples correctly even in the presence of misclassified data in training examples. It uses DOE to reveal that misclassifications present in training data affect training quality, and hence performance, albeit not as strongly as the SVM's primary design parameters. Still, our results give strong support for one's striving to develop the best trained SVM that is intended to be utilized, for instance, for medical diagnostics, for misclassified training data shrink decision boundary distance, and increasing generalization error. Further, this study affirms that to be effective, the SVM design optimization objective should incorporate real life costs or consequences of classifying wrongly.
Fusion order controls expression level and activity of elastin‐like polypeptide fusion proteins

We have previously developed a method to purify recombinant proteins, termed inverse transition cycling (ITC) that eliminates the need for column chromatography. ITC exploits the inverse solubility phase transition of an elastin‐like polypeptide (ELP) that is fused to a protein of interest. In ITC, a recombinant ELP fusion protein is cycled through its phase transition, resulting in separation of the ELP fusion protein from other Escherichia coli contaminants. Herein, we examine the role of the position of the ELP in the fusion protein on the expression levels and yields of purified protein for four recombinant ELP fusion proteins. Placing the ELP at the C‐terminus of the target protein (protein‐ELP) results in a higher expression level for the four ELP fusion proteins, which also translates to a greater yield of purified protein. The position of the fusion protein also has a significant impact on its specific activity, as ELP‐protein constructs have a lower specific activity than protein‐ELP constructs for three out of the four proteins. Our results show no difference in mRNA levels between protein‐ELP and ELP‐protein fusion constructs. Instead, we suggest two possible explanations for these results: first, the translational efficiency of mRNA may differ between the fusion protein in the two orientations and second, the lower level of protein expression and lower specific activity is consistent with a scenario that placement of the ELP at the N‐terminus of the fusion protein increases the fraction of misfolded, and less active conformers, which are also preferentially degraded compared to fusion proteins in which the ELP is present at the C‐terminal end of the protein.
Gender Segregation and the European Employment Strategy: Levels and Divisions

Equal opportunities has constituted one of the four pillars of the European Employment Strategy (EES) as approved at the Luxembourg summit in 1997. However, there are tensions between the EES and the imperatives of budgetary restraint (which have caused job losses in public services, where women are disproportionately employed) and between quantitative targets of increasing women’s labour-force participation and qualitative targets of overcoming gender segregation. This article explores these tensions, drawing evidence from comparative European research and the particular experience of Sweden.
Effects of Foreign Exchange Intervention under Public Information: The Chilean Case

This paper studies the effects of exchange rate interventions using daily and intraday data for Chile, from 1998 to 2003. Its main contribution is the recognition of the role played by transparency and public announcements in the success of the intervention policy, through the existence of an expectations mechanism which directly impacts the exchange rate. Three foreign exchange policy instruments are distinguished -spot, dollar denominated papers (BCD´s) and announcements- and treated as independent interventions. Time series estimations are used to capture the effect of the traditionally studied spot interventions, as well as the effects associated to the announcement channel that we propose as potentially relevant. Results show that the impact of individual interventions (spot and BCD) are extremely small and, in most cases, non-significant. Also, the importance of the hypothesized announcement mechanism is confirmed. The impact of Central Bank actions on the exchange rate´s level and trend seem to be channeled through the public announcements made by the monetary authority. The market adjusts its expectations to the information revealed through them, with the exchange rate responding accordingly. These effects occur on longer time spans than the ones suggested by the traditional literature. The negligible effect of individual interventions is also found, for the year 2001, with the use of intraday data.
Ongoing airway inflammation in patients with COPD who do not currently smoke

BACKGROUND Inflammatory changes in the airways in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are largely attributed to smoking, yet they may be present even if patients do not currently smoke. The differences in inflammatory cells and the factors contributing to these differences were examined in the airways of patients with COPD who do not currently smoke. METHODS Eighteen non-atopic subjects with COPD (14 men) of mean (SD) age 62 (8) years and forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) 59 (13)% predicted and 11 non-atopic healthy subjects (eight men) of mean (SD) age 58 (8) years, FEV1 104 (11)% predicted were studied. Sputum induction and bronchoscopy with bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) and biopsies were performed. RESULTS Patients with COPD had more mucosal EG2+ cells (eosinophils) (median (range) 40 (0–190) versus 5 (0–40) cells/mm2, p = 0.049) and CD68+ cells (1115 (330–2920) versus 590 (450–1580) cells/mm2, p = 0.03), and a tendency towards more CD4+ but not CD8+ lymphocytes than healthy controls. Furthermore, patients with COPD had higher percentages of sputum neutrophils (77 (29–94) versus 36 (18–60)%, p = 0.001) and eosinophils (1.2 (0–8.5) versus 0.2 (0–3.1)%, p = 0.008), BAL fluid eosinophils (0.4 (0–1.7) versus 0.2 (0–0.5)%, p = 0.03), and higher concentrations of sputum eosinophilic cationic protein (ECP) (838 (115–23 760) versus 121 (35–218) ng/ml, p<0.001). Concentrations of ECP expressed per eosinophil were not higher. Patients with COPD with high mucosal EG2+ cell numbers also had high mucosal CD4+ cell numbers. Sputum eosinophilia was associated with a decrease in FEV1/VC and BAL fluid eosinophilia with a decrease in mucosal NP57+ cells (neutrophils). CONCLUSIONS Subjects with COPD who do not currently smoke have increased numbers of inflammatory cells. Eosinophils are increased in number in the airways in COPD but do not seem to be activated. The increased eosinophil numbers are probably due to recruitment as a result of ongoing inflammation. Macrophages and lymphocytes may play a part in this inflammation.
Coherent global market simulations and securitization measures for counterparty credit risk

Valuing, hedging and securitizing counterparty credit risk involves analyzing large portfolios of netting sets over time horizons spanning decades. Theory dictates that the simulation measure should be coherent, i.e. arbitrage free. It should also be used consistently both to simulate and to value all instruments.This article describes the Mathematics and the software architecture of a risk system that accomplishes this task. The usage pattern is based on an offline phase to calibrate and generate model libraries. Valuation and simulation algorithms are planned offline with portfolio specific optimizations. The interactive user-driven phase includes a coherent global market simulation taking a few minutes and a real time data exploration phase with response time below 10 seconds.Data exploration includes 3-dimensional risk visualization of portfolio loss distributions and sensitivities. It also includes risk resolution capability for outliers from the global portfolio level down to the single instrument level and hedge ratio optimization. The network bottleneck is bypassed by using heterogeneous boards with acceleration. The memory bottleneck is avoided at the algorithmic level by adapting the mathematical framework to revolve around a handful of compute-bound algorithms.
Needs Based Planning: Use of Information from Individual Assessments to Develop Population Estimates of Need and Use of Resources

By separating purchasing from the traditional provider role, the new community care policy has brought about a fundamental change in the planning role of health and local authorities. The policy implies changed assumptions about what constitutes need and requires an improved understanding of local needs. The policy has not only placed a duty on local authorities to assess the needs of the population in support of their Community Care Plans, but has also brought about several changes which have by their nature encouraged many local authorities to undertake a more detailed needs assessment. The PSSRU, in conjunction with Surrey Social Service Department, has been developing a needs based planning model which will assist in the equitable and efficient deployment of community care resources for elderly and physically disabled people. The model is customised to reflect local priorities and assumptions. The model synthesises local client needs assessment data with national data to provide a method of predicting numbers of the population in these target groups which can then be translated into potential resource requirements. This paper provides a background to the development of the project by discussing the place of needs based planning in population needs assessment and local authority strategic planning. The final section discusses the progress and development of the methodology in Surrey.
Homes as Old Age Security? Households’ Perceptions of Housing and Elderly Care in Finland and Portugal

Abstract This paper investigates homeowners’ views on housing and elderly care in two urban localities in Finland and Portugal. A special emphasis is put on the perception of old-age care arrangements and the role of housing equity in providing security. Our qualitative interview data focuses on the shared frameworks of understanding through which interviewees make sense of these issues. Given the socio-cultural differences between the two countries, it can be expected that these frameworks would be rather different. The Finnish welfare state endorses the ideals of the Nordic welfare model, such as universal benefits, high coverage and public provision. Portugal represents the Mediterranean model where the family and the third sector are central in providing welfare and the state's role is more limited. Therefore, one could hypothesise that Portuguese interviewees regard old-age care mostly outside the scope of the state, with stronger inputs from the family than Finnish interviewees. Additionally, within the perspective of home as the locus of family solidarity and intergenerational transfers, equity withdrawal would be understood more negatively whereas Finnish households would see it more positively emphasising the benefits it gives to the individual.
Combining Image Processing with Signal Processing to Improve Radio Position Estimation

This paper uses aerial, orthorectified imagery to model the radio multipath environment. This model is used to improve time difference of arrival (TDOA) based radio positioning. The imagery is processed using a building extraction algorithm compiled from current techniques. The building model is used to develop a shortest-path routing protocol from each candidate transmitter position to each receiver, creating more accurate models of the TDOA information than are available when assuming all paths are line of sight (LOS). The final positioning algorithm is a maximum likelihood algorithm that compares the observed and theoretical TDOA values at each grid point. When compared to the Chan & Ho method which assumes line of sight (LOS), the method in this paper improves transmitter geolocation error by an average of 44 m (53%) in non-LOS environments. However, in cases where all receivers actually have a LOS, the current method is faster and slightly more accurate. Therefore, the method in this paper is most applicable to scenarios requiring position estimation of vehicles in an urban environment using stationary receivers and significant computing power.
Why We Need the Concept of “Mental Health Literacy”

In this issue, Mackert and colleagues argue for the benefits of a general health literacy focus, which can be applied across health domains. Using the concept of mental health literacy as an example, this article argues that there are also major advantages of a domain-specific approach. The concept of mental health literacy has had policy impacts and led to the development of interventions, which might not have otherwise occurred. It has also led to the development of assessments specifically targeted at intervention goals. It is concluded that while a general concept of health literacy might be appropriate for some purposes, it does not meet the specific needs of the mental health area.