Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Declivity in steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) recruitment at the Keogh river over the past decade

Survival and return of unharvested winter-run steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) at the Keogh River, British Columbia, declined abruptly and remained persistently low after 1990. Adult returns averaged 1168 fish from 1976 to 1990 but were significantly lower from 1991 to 1998 (mean 223). Forty wild females returned to the 35-km river in 1995-1996, 20 in 1996-1997, and <10 in 1997-1998. The positive linear relationship between smolts and returns was significantly lower after 1990 and no longer correlated with smolt size. Smolt-to-adult survival averaged 15% (1976 to 1989) but recently averaged 3.5% (1990 to 1995). Smolt number steadily declined to <1000 by 1998 from an average annual count of 7000. Smolts per spawner from 1991 to 1994 were, on average, 70% lower than previous estimates based on the same spawner abundance. Recruitment scenarios based on survival histories during freshwater and marine life stages indicated that adult recruits are currently below replacement and unsustainable if conditions conti.
TINJAUAN TERHADAP DAMPAK TEKNOLOGI INFORMASI DALAM ORGANISASI BISNIS DAN UPAYA UNTUK MEREALISASIKAN MANFAAT POSITIFNYA

Efforts to assess the effect of information technology on firm performance to date, have given mixed results. Some of the research have been unable to conclude the positive effect of information technology on performance. This paper aims to discuss how an organization can better use its information technology assets to realize this positive impact. In order to realize this positive impact, an organization can not just relying itself on investing in information technology equipment. Moreover organization should direct its human resources to innovate on technology that is possessed, fixing its business process, and choosing the right business model by using its technology. Abstract in Bahasa Indonesia : Upaya untuk meneliti dampak teknologi informasi pada kinerja perusahaan selama ini, telah memberikan temuan yang bertolak belakang. Sebagian dari penelitian tersebut tidak dapat menyimpulkan adanya dampak positif dari teknologi informasi terhadap kinerja. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk membahas bagaimana suatu organisasi dapat menggunakan asset teknologi informasinya dengan lebih baik untuk memperoleh dampak positif dari teknologi tersebut. Untuk dapat merealisasikan dampak positif tersebut, suatu organisasi tidak dapat berhenti pada melakukan investasi pada perangkat teknologi informasi saja, lebih jauh lagi organisasi tersebut harus mengerahkan sumber daya manusianya untuk berinovasi pada teknologi yang dimiliki, memperbaiki proses bisnis yang ada, serta memilih model bisnis yang sesuai dengan memanfaatkan teknologi yang telah dimilikinya. Kata kunci:. teknologi informasi, productivity paradoks, business model.
What is consumerism and has it had an impact on health visiting provision? A literature review.

AIMS This paper analyses the concept of consumerism drawing on methods of concept analysis. It attempts to identify who the actual consumers of health visiting are before examining whether consumerism and the consumer's voice has had an impact on health visiting provision. BACKGROUND Patients and clients are increasingly being referred to as consumers, but the term seems to be used simply as substitute for patient, client or service user. Consumerism is a complex concept and the extent of its usage in the context of health visiting has not been fully explored. METHOD An integrative review of a range of literature relating to consumerism is presented. A focused analysis of consumer views of child health clinics is used to illustrate the concept of consumerism. Elements of concept analysis methods such as formulating a model case and a definition are used to illustrate the concept further. RESULTS The review suggests that consumerism is an outdated concept and has been replaced by other less emotive terms such as partnership and participation. The apparent lack of impact of consumerism research in health visiting is argued by examining empirical evidence relating to child health clinics. CONCLUSIONS Consumerism has had relatively little impact on improving child health clinics although high levels of consumer satisfaction with the overall service exist. More methodologically sound studies are needed to explore users' views of health visiting services and to implement findings to maintain or improve services.
Budgetary and Efficiency Effects of Housing Taxation in the United States

Abstract In the context of a dynamic general equilibrium model of the U.S. economy this paper analyzes the budgetary and efficiency effects of eliminating both the deductibility of housing mortgage interest payments from the personal income tax base and the tax exemption of imputed housing rents for owner-occupants. Simulation results suggest that both policies would boost tax revenues. They would, however, have a small contractionary effect on GDP. Moreover, when tax revenue effects are neutralized, both policies would marginally improve long-term allocation efficiency. Rigidities in the accumulation of housing assets would, however, lead to short-term efficiency losses.
Central Banking in Contemporary Capitalism: Monetary Policy and its Limits

This paper examines central banking in contemporary capitalism, particularly the role of inflation targeting and central bank independence. Emphasis is laid on the consequences of financial instability in light of the various episodes of the 1990s as well as the current sub-prime mortgage market crisis. A Marxist political economy framework of monetary policy and financial instability is employed to show the limits of contemporary monetary policy. The paper stresses the importance of the various social and political aspects of central banking and their relation to class interests. It is established that the recent financial crisis shows the class dimension of inflation targeting, particularly its defence of financial interests. Central banks have used their power to protect financial profits while socialising financial losses at the expense of the vast majority of society.
State Agencies and Their Environments: Examining the Influence of Important External Actors

Research on the federal bureaucracy has long recognized the importance of organization environment for differentiating among agencies and affecting their political support as well as policy outputs. Although the environment has been considered an element in the behavior of state agencies as well, research at this level has been less sensitive to important differences across agency environments. This article identifies four major actors in the policy environment of state agencies--the governor, legislature, clientele groups, and professional associations--and based on a 1978 survey of state administrators, evaluates empirically the influence of these sources over a sample of agencies encompassing all 50 states. Data analysis shows that in addition to agency type, several factors are systematically associated with differences in the nature of the environment confronted, including agency structural characteristics, funding provisions, exogenous shocks to normal operations and state political environment. Just as at the federal level, then, this research suggests that at the state level, bureaucracy more closely resembles a collection of heterogeneous agencies than a monolithic institution.
Socialism, Spillovers and Markets in Cuba

This article undertakes an empirical evaluation of Cuba's new development strategy placing tourism at the heart of the process of incorporating markets into a socialist system. The principal research question is whether the introduction of markets related to the Cuban tourism complex has been as successful in establishing viable backward linkages to industry as claimed. Drawing on a multitude of quantitative and qualitative sources, the article demonstrates that backward linkage building has been quite successful and even made possible a transformation of Cuba's formerly so dependent trade structures. However, there are signs that backward linkages are not as viable as could be desired. Other complementary reforms beside the introduction of markets are necessary, such as fighting soft budget constraints in user and producer firms. The article concludes that it will be difficult to fight the roots of the inherited incentive problem without initiating fundamental labour market reforms.
Price and output control in a community power network with renewable generations

With the increasing popularity of the renewable generation sources these days, we are facing the great challenges on how to integrate them into a community distribution network smoothly. The variability of renewable generation makes it difficult to maintain the voltage stability. As a widely accepted solution that requires the least change on the substation controllers, the output of a renewable generator needs to be controlled so that no power is injected from a distribution network substation into a transmission network. In this paper, we design a control policy that regulates the power output from the renewable generators. We further leverage the price control to discourage non-collaborative behaviors so that this policy can not only guarantee the stability of the distribution network, but also ensure the fairness of generators in case of non-collaborations. Through simulations we demonstrate that this policy enables us to integrate renewable generations to achieve their benefits while limiting their disadvantages.
THE DEMAND FOR MILITARY EXPENDITURE: EVIDENCE FROM THE EU15 (1961–2005)

In recent years, there has been a growing number of studies that investigate the economic effects of military spending using a variety of estimation methods and focusing either on individual countries or on groups of relatively homogeneous countries. The situation is not the same as far as the demand for military expenditure is concerned, where less attention has been given and the majority of empirical studies have focused on individual countries, with only a few focusing on groups of countries and employing cross‐sectional or panel data approaches. A region that has not attracted any research interest regarding the determinants of military expenditure is the European Union (EU) with the exception of individual country studies (mainly for the UK, Greece, France, Spain, Portugal). This paper argues that understanding the determinants of military spending in these countries is very important, especially given the discussions in recent years towards the development of a Common European Security and Defence Policy (CESDP). It then follows Dunne et al. (2003) and employs the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration to estimate a general model of aggregate defence spending for each of the 15 core EU countries over the period 1961–2005. The findings indicate that there is very little uniformity in the factors that determine each country’s demand for military expenditure, something that needs to be borne in mind by policy makers when burden‐sharing issues are considered in the development of the CESDP.
Biofuel Cells Select for Microbial Consortia That Self-Mediate Electron Transfer

ABSTRACT Microbial fuel cells hold great promise as a sustainable biotechnological solution to future energy needs. Current efforts to improve the efficiency of such fuel cells are limited by the lack of knowledge about the microbial ecology of these systems. The purposes of this study were (i) to elucidate whether a bacterial community, either suspended or attached to an electrode, can evolve in a microbial fuel cell to bring about higher power output, and (ii) to identify species responsible for the electricity generation. Enrichment by repeated transfer of a bacterial consortium harvested from the anode compartment of a biofuel cell in which glucose was used increased the output from an initial level of 0.6 W m−2 of electrode surface to a maximal level of 4.31 W m−2 (664 mV, 30.9 mA) when plain graphite electrodes were used. This result was obtained with an average loading rate of 1 g of glucose liter−1 day−1 and corresponded to 81% efficiency for electron transfer from glucose to electricity. Cyclic voltammetry indicated that the enhanced microbial consortium had either membrane-bound or excreted redox components that were not initially detected in the community. Dominant species of the enhanced culture were identified by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis and culturing. The community consisted mainly of facultative anaerobic bacteria, such as Alcaligenes faecalis and Enterococcus gallinarum, which are capable of hydrogen production. Pseudomonas aeruginosa and other Pseudomonas species were also isolated. For several isolates, electrochemical activity was mainly due to excreted redox mediators, and one of these mediators, pyocyanin produced by P. aeruginosa, could be characterized. Overall, the enrichment procedure, irrespective of whether only attached or suspended bacteria were examined, selected for organisms capable of mediating the electron transfer either by direct bacterial transfer or by excretion of redox components.
Localization and Developmental Expression Patterns of the Neuronal K–Cl Cotransporter (KCC2) in the Rat Retina

The processing of signals by integrative neurons in the retina and CNS relies strongly on inhibitory synaptic inputs, principally from GABAergic and glycinergic neurons that serve primarily to hyperpolarize postsynaptic neurons. Recent evidence indicates that the neuron-specific K–Cl cotransporter 2 (KCC2) is the major chloride extrusion system permitting hyperpolarizing inhibitory responses. It has been hypothesized that depolarizing GABA responses observed in immature neurons are converted to hyperpolarizing responses in large part by the expression of KCC2 during the second week of postnatal development. The cell-specific localization and developmental expression of KCC2 protein have been examined in relatively few neural tissues and have never been studied in retina, of which much is known physiologically and morphologically about inhibitory synaptic circuits. We examined the localization of KCC2 in adult rat retina with immunohistochemical techniques and determined the time course of its postnatal expression. KCC2 expression was localized in horizontal cells, bipolar cells, amacrine cells, and, most likely, ganglion cells, all of which are known to express GABA receptor subtypes. Developmentally, KCC2 expression in the retina increased gradually from postnatal day 1 (P1) until P14 in the inner retina, whereas expression was delayed in the outer plexiform layer until P7 but reached its adult level by P14. These data support the hypothesis that the function of KCC2 is intimately involved in GABAergic synaptic processing. Furthermore, the delayed temporal expression of KCC2 in the outer plexiform layer indicates that GABAergic function may be differentially regulated in retina during postnatal development and that GABA may produce depolarizing responses in the outer plexiform layer at times when it generates hyperpolarizing responses in the inner plexiform layer.
Upregulation of microRNA-206 induces apoptosis of vascular smooth muscle cells and decreases risk of atherosclerosis through modulating FOXP1

Forkhead box protein subfamily P (FOXP) 1 has an important role in the control of gene transcription and is also reported to function as a tumor suppressor. The aim of the present study was to explore the regulatory mechanisms of atherosclerosis by investigating the function of microRNA-206 (miR-206) and the regulatory association between miR-206 and its potential target gene, FOXP1, in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). Bioinformatics tools were utilized to identify FOXP1 as a target of miR-206. Luciferase reporter analysis was used to confirm this relationship and to identify the miR-206 binding site in the FOXP1 3′-untranslated region. It was demonstrated that the relative survival rate of VSMCs was suppressed by miR-206 compared with scramble controls. Furthermore, reduced expression of miR-206 in atherosclerosis tissue samples was observed, and the mRNA and protein expression levels of FOXP1 were upregulated in atherosclerosis tissue samples, both compared with the controls, indicating a negative correlation between miR-206 and FOXP1. Additionally, when treated with miR-206 mimics, the relative survival rate of VSMCs was notably reduced, which was rescued by overexpression of FOXP1. These findings increased the understanding of the regulatory role of miR-206 in atherosclerosis in VSMCs via targeting the FOXP1 gene; therefore, intervention with miR-206 as a therapeutic technique may be a strategy for atherosclerosis treatment in the future.
Common ground, worlds apart: The development of Australia's relationship with the European Union

The increasing importance of the European Union (EU) as an internationa l actor has only recently come to the attention of Australian foreign policy analysts and commentators. Given that Australia’s economic policy relations with western Europe are now conducted ‘as much, if not more, with the European Union as with the individual countries themselves’ (Evans and Grant, 1995: 309) the relationship between the EU and Australia warrants greater consideration. This article explores the broadening of the relationship between Australia and the EU: from the beginning when Australia was focused almost exclusively on the UK; through years of turbulent disagreement over the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP); to the latest phase, characterised by greater dialogue and signi cant bilateral agreements. It argues that Australia’s relationship with the EU, an asymmetrical one, disadvantages the weaker partner and this has been compounded by some diplomatic mismanagement, a fact that is gradually dawning on current analysts and policymakers in Australia. Further, it is clear that concentration on a single issue, the CAP, has disadvantaged Australia in the past. The relationship between Australia and the European Union has received little attention in academic literature; and has been undervalued by foreign policy-makers (Davison, 1991; Groom, 1989; Murray, 1997, 1999, 2002a; Richardson, 1992). In some ways this neglect is unsurprising : as noted in an analysis of the EU’s global activities, ‘Australia and New Zealand are among the few countries in the world for which the EU has become less rather than more important since the 1980s’ (Piening, 1997: 163). With the development of regionalism since the 1980s, Australian governments moved towards a more focused engagement with the Asia-Paci c region: geography, not history, was to take precedence. However, the growth of the EU into Australia’s most important economic partner in the 1990s, and the extension of the EU’s reach into an increasing number of spheres, suggests a more complex picture. At the core of the EU’s external relations is the Common Commercial Policy (CCP) and the common external tariff. Moreover, ‘internal’ policies such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the single market and the single European currency have signi cant international implications. The EU also negotiates on behalf of its 15 member states at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and
Neurophysiological distinction of verb categories

Neurophysiological brain responses to subcategories of action verbs were recorded using high resolution EEG. Starting 240 ms after word onset, topographies of event-related potentials distinguished between verbs referring to different action types. Current source density estimates revealed that verbs referring to actions executed with the legs (to kick) produced an activity focus close to the vertex, above motor areas involved in the programming of leg movements, whereas facerelated verbs (to speak) produced a focus at left-lateral recordings, above perisylvian areas and the cortical representation of the face and articulators. This is evidence that brain mechanisms involved in word processing can differ even between fine-grained lexico-semantic subcategories and already within the first quarter of a second after word onset. We offer an explanation of the data in neurobiological terms.
Insulin Increases Sympathetic Activity but Not Blood Pressure in Borderline Hypertensive Humans

We have previously demonstrated that physiological hyperinsulinemia in normotensive humans increases sympathetic nerve activity but not arterial pressure since it also causes skeletal muscle vasodilation. However, in the presence of insulin resistance and/or hypertension, insulin may cause exaggerated sympathetic activation or impaired vasodilation and thus elevate arterial pressure. This study sought to determine if insulin causes a pressor response in borderline hypertensive humans by producing exaggerated increases in sympathetic neural outflow or impaired vasodilation. We recorded muscle sympathetic nerve activity (microneurography, peroneal nerve), forearm blood flow, heart rate, and blood pressure in 13 borderline hypertensive subjects during a 1-hour insulin infusion (38 microunits/m2/min) while holding blood glucose constant. Plasma insulin rose from 12 ±3 microunits/ml (mean±SEM) during control to 73±7 microunits/ml during insulin infusion and fell to 9±2 microunits/ml 2 hours after insulin infusion was stopped. Muscle sympathetic nerve activity, which averaged 25±2 bursts per minute in control, increased significantly during insulin infusion (+9 bursts per minute) and remained elevated 1.5 hours into recovery (+7 bursts per minute, p < 0.001). Despite increased muscle sympathetic nerve activity, there were significant (p < 0.001) increases in forearm blood flow and decreases in forearm vascular resistance during insulin infusion. Further, systolic and diastolic pressures fell approximately 3 and 6 mm Hg, respectively, during insulin infusion (p < 0.01). This study suggests that acute physiological increases in plasma insulin elevate sympathetic neural outflow in borderline hypertensive humans but produce vasodilation and do not elevate arterial pressure.
[Location and frequency of visual field defects as measured by SITA (Swedish Interactive Threshold Algorithm) strategy in primary open angle glaucoma].

PURPOSE To evaluate the frequency, location and pattern of visual field defects as measured by SITA strategy in primary open angle glaucoma (POAG). METHODS Six thousand and two-hundred charts were reviewed. One hundred and fifty two patients who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were included. They were stratified according to severity into early, moderate and severe. The following visual field defects were defined: nasal step, paracentral scotomata, arcuate defect, Seidel scotomata, temporal defect, general reduction of sensitivity, annular scotomata and central island. Each examination was divided into sectors corresponding to optic disc regions. Student's t test was used to compare differences in frequency. RESULTS In the early glaucoma group, the nasal superior step was the most frequent visual field defect, followed by paracentral scotoma and inferior nasal step. General reduction of sensitivity was noted in 7.8%. Defects were more common in the superior hemifield (p<0.05). CONCLUSION The superior nasal step and paracentral scotoma were the most commun visual field defects in early primary open angle glaucoma as evaluated by SITA strategy, and the superior hemifield comprises most of the defects. General reduction of sensitivity was an early and rare visual field defect.