Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ozonized carbon black induces mitochondrial dysfunction and DNA damage

Black carbon and tropospheric ozone (O3), which are major air pollutants in China, are hazardous to humans following inhalation. Black carbon can be oxidized by O3 forming secondary particles of which the health effects are unknown. The present study utilized carbon black as a representative of black carbon to characterize the cytotoxicity induced by secondary particles in bronchial epithelial cells (16HBE) and C57BL/6J mice, and to investigate the implicated molecular pathways. Two types of carbon black including untreated carbon black (UCB) and ozonized carbon black (OCB) were presented. The effects of carbon black on cell viability, intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), oxidized/reduced glutathione ratio, mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP), intracellular ATP, and mitochondrial cytochrome c to cytoplasmic cytochrome c ratio were assessed in 16HBE. In addition, an alkaline comet assay and a cytokinesis‐block micronucleus (CBMN) test with 16HBE cells in vitro and ELISA method for serum 8‐hydroxy‐2′‐deoxyguanosine (8‐OHdG) and a bone marrow micronucleus (BMN) test with C57BL/6J mice in vivo were performed to detect the genotoxicity. When compared with UCB exposed cells, OCB exposed cells had decreased cell viability, increased cell death rate, increased comet length and decreased MMP at 24 h exposure. UCB induced higher level of intracellular ROS than OCB from 4 to 23 h. No changes were observed for both OCB and UCB in serum 8‐OHdG, intracellular ATP and mitochondrial cytochrome c to cytoplasmic cytochrome c ratio. The results of CBMN and BMN tests are negative. Intracellular ROS induced by OCB was lower than that of UCB. In summary, ozonization enhances the mitochondrial toxicity and genotoxicity of carbon black. Oxidative stress may not dominate in toxic effects of OCB. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Environ Toxicol 32: 944–955, 2017.
5-HT and the brain–gut axis: opportunities for pharmacologic intervention

Interactions between the enteric nervous system of the gut and the brain occur bidirectionally over sympathetic and parasympathetic pathways. Coordinated actions of the central, autonomic and enteric nervous systems modulate intestinal motor, sensory and secretory activities by neuromodulators, including 5-HT, noradrenaline and dopamine. 5-HT is an important signaling molecule in the brain–gut axis and the 5-HT released from enterochromaffin cells modulates peristaltic, secretory, vasodilatory, vagal and nociceptive reflexes. Irritable bowel syndrome is associated with altered motility, secretion and sensation; enteric 5-HT signaling may be defective in this disorder. In this editorial, recent data are reviewed and the potential for the development of pharmacologic intervention is assessed.
Multidrug resistant Salmonella typhi and antimicrobial agent quality and bioavailability.

Increasing incidence of multidrug resistant Salmonella typhi has been a scourge for those afflicted with enteric fever all over the world. Recently Gautam et al. [1] reported decreased Salmonella typhi susceptibility to ciprofloxacin. The minimum inhibitory antibiotic concentration for third generation cephalosporin and aminoglycosides was above the cut-off level. Plasmid and DNA genomic characterization of 102 Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi isolates from different regions of Kenya was intriguing. There were only 13.7% fully susceptible isolates, with 82.4% being resistant to five commonly available drugs [2]. In all probability, more expensive and not readily available antimicrobials will be required to address future episodes of multi-drug resistant S. enterica serovar Typhi strains. For rational use of these, as well as the commonly available antibiotics, it is essential to examine bioavailability and field quality as well as the types of antibiotics offered to patients. The efficacy of intramuscularly given benzathine penicillin G and oral penicillin V for the eradication of streptococci from children with acute pharyngitis has been known for a while. Recently, however, there was a warning from Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the recommended penicillin doses applied to children with group A streptococci infection were accompanied by 35% to 37% failures. A carrier state and inadequate bioavailability of intramuscularly given benzathine penicillin were responsible for this poor therapeutic response [3]. Different brands of orally administered antibiotics vary remarkably in their in vivo bioavailability Dissolution efficiencies of different brands of film coated ciprofloxacin tablets were monitored in acetic acid and phosphate buffer pH7.4. Five of the six brands with a 60-70% fall in 30 minutes were adequately bioavailable in vivo. The sixth brand had less than a 40% fall in ciprofloxacin content and was less bioavailable [4]. Poor bioavailability would result in therapeutic failures and would promote the emergence of multi drug resistant S. enterica serovar Typhi. Assays made in Nigeria, of the active ingredients of common therapeutic agents, including antibiotics offered to patients with various ailments in pharmacies, gave astounding results. As many as 48% of the samples of common medicines were found outside the limits prescribed by the British Pharmacopoeia [5]. Similar scenarios with common or not so common antimicrobials offered against S. enterica serovar Typhi episodes would favor the selection, propagation and dissemination of multi drug-resistant isolates. Certainly, surveillance of antimicrobial potency and bioavailability of prescriptions against typhoid would reduce therapeutic failures attributed to poor quality medicines or any inadequate bioavailability.
Predicting IHRM strategy and practice decisions: development of the IHRM orientation typology

International human resource management (IHRM) is becoming increasingly fundamental to organisational success, as globalisation forces demand organisations to design and implement a global strategy. One of the most critical choices faced by IHRM practitioners is whether and when an organisation should adapt its human resource policies and practices to the local context (localisation). A typology of International Human Resource Management Orientations (IHRMO) that clarifies what IHRMO’s are and what they entail is developed from a review of the literature on localisation and globalisation, convergence and divergence and Perlmutter’s management typology. Additionally, two theoretical models are developed that predict which IHRM orientation identified in the typology should be adopted. The article takes a step towards elucidating effective IHRM strategy and practice decision‐making by showing that culture and institutional pressures, amongst other tings, do make a difference.
An improvement to MBASIC algorithm for 3-D motion and depth estimation

In model-based coding of facial images, the accuracy of motion and depth parameter estimates strongly affects the coding efficiency. MBASIC (model-based analysis-synthesis image coding) is a simple and effective iterative algorithm recently proposed by Aizawa et el. (see Signal Processing: Image Communication, no.1, p.139-52, 1989) for 3-D motion and depth estimation when the initial depth estimates are relatively accurate. In this correspondence, we analyze its performance in the presence of errors in the initial depth estimates and propose a modification to MBASIC algorithm that significantly improves its robustness to random errors with only a small increase in the computational load.
Manipulation of indoleamine 2,3 dioxygenase; a novel therapeutic target for treatment of diseases

Background: The discovery of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) as a modulator for the maintenance of fetomaternal immuno-privileged state has been heralded as a significant step in further defining the role of IDO in immunobiology. IDO is an IFN-inducible, intracellular enzyme that catalyzes the initial and rate-limiting step in the degradation of the essential amino acid, tryptophan. It has been suggested that IDO has the capacity to regulate the immune system via two discrete mechanisms; firstly the deprivation of tryptophan, which is essential for T cell proliferation and via the cytotoxic effects of tryptophan metabolites on TH1 cell survival. Methods: The sources of information used to prepare the paper are published work on Pubmed/Medline. In this review, we examine the therapeutic role of modulating IDO activity a variety of disease states including tumour tolerance, chronic infection, transplant rejection, autoimmunity and asthma. We propose that IDO represents a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of these diseases. We also explore the diverse strategies which are being employed, either to augment or to inhibit IDO activity in order to modify various disease processes. The limitations associated with these strategies are also scrutinized.
Towards a green tax reform model

This paper is concerned with the role of environmental taxes in contemporary tax reform processes. It uses the theories of taxation, tax reform and environmental policy to explore the relationship between real-world environmental taxation and applied tax reforms, establishing an almost perfect integration of environmental taxes in contemporary tax reforms. This defines a ‘green’ variant of the universal hybrid-extensive reform model, clearly related to the ideas on double dividends from environmental taxes, which indicates the likely importance of environmental taxation in future fiscal and environmental policies. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
How Efficiently Does the Stock Market Process News of Price Anomalies?

If an investable anomaly is discovered and awareness of it spreads, one would expect market forces to bid it out of existence in the long run. In this article, the authors test whether this has happened with the relative value anomaly. This approach to value investing was introduced over 25 years ago and was shown to offer superior risk-adjusted returns. Its outperformance has been well documented in academic and professional journals as well as general interest publications. Has this broad market knowledge of the relative value anomaly diminished the opportunity it holds for investors? The authors examine its performance over time to find out.
The Synaptonemal Complex Protein ZYP1 Is Required for Imposition of Meiotic Crossovers in Barley[W][OPEN]

The number of genetic crossovers during meiosis, and the potential for creating novel variation, is influenced by the ZYP1 protein. When ZYP1 is depleted in Arabidopsis, fewer crossovers occur, whereas in rice, more crossovers have been reported. Here, we show that barley plants with very reduced amounts of ZYP1 make far fewer crossovers, although the localization of crossovers is not affected. In many cereal crops, meiotic crossovers predominantly occur toward the ends of chromosomes and 30 to 50% of genes rarely recombine. This limits the exploitation of genetic variation by plant breeding. Previous reports demonstrate that chiasma frequency can be manipulated in plants by depletion of the synaptonemal complex protein ZIPPER1 (ZYP1) but conflict as to the direction of change, with fewer chiasmata reported in Arabidopsis thaliana and more crossovers reported for rice (Oryza sativa). Here, we use RNA interference (RNAi) to reduce the amount of ZYP1 in barley (Hordeum vulgare) to only 2 to 17% of normal zygotene levels. In the ZYP1RNAi lines, fewer than half of the chromosome pairs formed bivalents at metaphase and many univalents were observed, leading to chromosome nondisjunction and semisterility. The number of chiasmata per cell was reduced from 14 in control plants to three to four in the ZYP1-depleted lines, although the localization of residual chiasmata was not affected. DNA double-strand break formation appeared normal, but the recombination pathway was defective at later stages. A meiotic time course revealed a 12-h delay in prophase I progression to the first labeled tetrads. Barley ZYP1 appears to function similarly to ZIP1/ZYP1 in yeast and Arabidopsis, with an opposite effect on crossover number to ZEP1 in rice, another member of the Poaceae.
Breast cytology and biomarkers obtained by random fine needle aspiration: Use in risk assessment and early chemoprevention trials

In a prospective pilot study, we performed breast fine needle aspirations (FNAs) on 224 high‐risk and 30 low‐risk women and analyzed these aspirates for cytologic changes and biomarker abnormalities of aneuploidy and overexpressed estrogen receptor (ER), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), p53 and HER‐2/neu. High‐risk women had a first‐degree relative with breast cancer (74%), prior biopsy indicating premalignant breast disease (25%), a history of breast cancer (13%), or some multiple of these risk factors (12%). Median ages of the high‐ and low‐risk groups were 44 and 42, respectively. Seventy percent of high‐risk and 17% of low‐risk women had cytologic evidence of hyperplasia with or without atypia (P<. 0001). Aneuploidy and overexpression of EGFR and p53 occurred in 27, 37, and 29% of high‐risk subjects but only 0, 3, and 3% of low‐risk subjects (P<. 0023). Overexpression of ER and HER‐2/neu occurred in 7 and 20% of high‐risk women but in none of the low‐risk subjects. Biomarker abnormalities were more frequent with increasing cytologic abnormality. Restricting the analysis to those 3 biomarkers most frequently overexpressed in the high‐risk group (ploidy, EGFR, p53), 13% of high‐risk women with normal cytology, 19% of high‐risk women with epithelial hyperplasia, and 49% of high‐risk women with hyperplasia with atypia had abnormalities of 2 or more of these 3 biomarkers (P =. 00004). At a median follow‐up of 32 months, four women have been diagnosed with invasive cancer and two with ductal carcinomain situ (DCIS). Later detection of these neoplastic conditions was associated (P ≤. 016) by univariate analysis with prior FNA evidence of hyperplasia with atypia; overexpression of p53 and EGFR; the modified Gail risk of breast cancer development at 10 years; and multiple biomarker abnormalities. By multivariate analysis, later detection of cancer was primarily predicted by the number of biomarker abnormalities in the 3‐test battery (P=. 0005) and secondarily by the Gail risk at 10 years (P =. 0049). In turn, hyperplasia with atypia was associated with multiple biomarker abnormalities, particularly p53 and EGFR overexpression. Thus, hyperplasia with atypia and cytologic markers in breast FNAs have promise as risk predictors and as surrogate endpoint biomarkers for breast cancer chemoprevention trials. J. Cell. Biochem. Suppls. 28/29:101–110. Published 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc. This article is a US Government work and, as such, is in the public domain in the United States of America.
The acquisition of plural marking in English and German revisited: schemata versus rules

This article contributes to a debate in the linguistic and psychological literature that centres around the representation of morphologically complex words in the grammar and in the lexicon. The issue is whether inflectional morphology is rule-based (i.e. symbolically represented), or whether the assumption of pattern association is more adequate to account for the facts. On the basis of the analysis of acquisitional data the article strongly argues for the latter alternative. In a classic experiment that helped shape the development of acquisition theory Berko (1958) reported substantial support for item-and-process rules in the acquisition of plural morphology in English. A large part of her results were zero responses (repetition of the stimulus). A reinterpretation of these zero responses in light of schema theory and the cue strength hypothesis shows a striking departure from randomness. Berko's subjects tended to repeat stimuli just to the extent that these already resembled a plural schema. A reinterpretation of data reported in Innes (1974) achieved compatible results. This data set is far more extensive than Berko's and is used in the present study to put the schema model to a more stringent test. A reinterpretation of a parallel experiment with German children, using the cue strength analysis of the more complex plural morphology of German yielded parallel results. Finally, natural acquisitional data obtained from seven German speaking children aged between 2;1 and 2;9 are analysed. Again, strong support is found for the schema model. It is suggested that a schema-learning mechanism may underlie the acquisition of morphology, even when the end product of the learning process involves item-and-process rules, as in the case of English plural formation. In a schema-learning model, the child builds schematic representations for possible singular and plural lexical items as whole gestalts, and attempts to map concrete forms onto these schemata in deciding whether the forms have singular or plural value.
Designing Policy for Reducing the Off-farm Effects of Soil Erosion Using Choice Experiments

Soil erosion produces both on-site private costs and off-site social costs, such as desertification, rural depopulation, siltation of waterways and reductions in biodiversity. To design efficient policies, land use planners and decision makers need information on the relative weights of changes in these consequences, since policy alternatives, such as different management restrictions, will have varying impacts on these consequences of erosion. The research presented here uses the choice experiment method to evaluate these relative weights, using a case study in the Alto Genil and Guadajoz watersheds in southern Spain. We find that reductions in desertification, protection of water quality, protection of biodiversity, the area covered by the scheme, and the number of rural jobs safeguarded are all significant determinants of preferences over alternative policy designs.
International Trade and Manufacturing Employment in the South: Four Country Case Studies

This paper investigates the impact of international trade on manufacturing employment in developing countries, by undertaking a comparative study of four countries—Bangladesh, Kenya, South Africa and Vietnam. It does so by employing a variety of methodological approaches: factor content; growth accounting; and econometric modelling. The main empirical finding is that international trade seems to be associated with the net creation of jobs in Bangladesh and Vietnam, with female workers being the key beneficiaries. In contrast, international trade has been associated with adverse employment outcomes in Kenya, and possibly in South Africa. This suggests that there may be crucial differences between Asia and Africa in terms of the impact of globalization on employment opportunities in manufacturing. Some alternative explanations for such differences are offered in the paper.
Corporate Investment and Dividend Decisions under Differential Personal Taxation

Abstract This paper explores implications of differential personal taxation for corporate investment and dividend decisions. The personal tax advantage of dividend deferral causes shareholders to generally prefer greater investment in real assets under internal as opposed to external financing. Furthermore, dividend deferral is shown to be costly at the corporate level, causing shareholders in different tax brackets at times to disagree over optimal investment and dividend policies under internal financing. The profitability of internally-financed security investment is shown to depend on a security's tax status and shareholders' tax brackets. However, externally-financed security purchases are unprofitable from a tax standpoint.
Excess-Entry Theorem: The Implications of Licensing

We show that, in the presence of technology licensing, entry in an industry with Cournot competition may lead to a socially insufficient, number of firms. Insufficient entry occurs if the own marginal cost of the entrant is sufficiently high. Hence, the justification for anticompetitive entry regulation due to the standard excess-entry result may not be justified in the presence of licensing. However, if the own marginal cost of the entrant is very low, licensing may create excessive entry for those entry costs where entry does not occur without licensing; thus licensing reduces social welfare though it increases competition.
Dynamic changes in plant secondary metabolites during UV acclimation in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Plants respond to environmental stress by synthesizing a range of secondary metabolites for defense purposes. Here we report on the effect of chronic ultraviolet (UV) radiation on the accumulation of plant secondary metabolites in Arabidopsis thaliana leaves. In the natural environment, UV is a highly dynamic environmental parameter and therefore we hypothesized that plants are continuously readjusting levels of secondary metabolites. Our data show distinct kinetic profiles for accumulation of tocopherols, polyamines and flavonoids upon UV acclimation. The lipid-soluble antioxidant α-tocopherol accumulated fast and remained elevated. Polyamines accumulated fast and transiently. This fast response implies a role for α-tocopherol and polyamines in short-term UV response. In contrast, an additional sustained accumulation of flavonols took place. The distinct accumulation patterns of these secondary metabolites confirm that the UV acclimation process is a dynamic process, and indicates that commonly used single time-point analyses do not reveal the full extent of UV acclimation. We demonstrate that UV stimulates the accumulation of specific flavonol glycosides, i.e. kaempferol and (to a lesser extent) quercetin di- and triglycosides, all specifically rhamnosylated at position seven. All metabolites were identified by Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography (UPLC)-coupled tandem mass spectrometry. Some of these flavonol glycosides reached steady-state levels in 3-4 days, while concentrations of others are still increasing after 12 days of UV exposure. A biochemical pathway for these glycosides is postulated involving 7-O-rhamnosylation for the synthesis of all eight metabolites identified. We postulate that this 7-O-rhamnosylation has an important function in UV acclimation.
Strategic management for competitive advantage: a case study of higher technical and vocational education in Taiwan

Higher technical and vocational education institutions in Taiwan face the pressure of an oversupply of student places and fierce competition from domestic and international institutions. To cope with these challenges, higher technical and vocational education institutions that are better equipped to respond to market requirements are expected to achieve competitive advantage and superior performance. A sector-specific model of competitive advantage for higher technical and vocational education institutions in Taiwan is, therefore, developed and tested. The model integrates theories of strategy and competitive advantage, namely industrial organisation theory and resource-based view theory. It is concluded that integration of industrial organisation and resource-based view theories provides a useful framework in which to comprehensively and systematically analyse an industry sector in relation to competitive advantage. This study also highlights that institutional performance depends on the match between the state of the environment surrounding the higher technical and vocational education institutions and their use of resources.
Interfirm Differences in Earnings Variability: An Analysis of Fundamentals, Cash Flows and Accruals

type="main" xml:id="acfi12038-abs-0001"> Prior research shows that the time-series variability of corporate earnings affects forecasting accuracy and corporate risk, yet little is known about the determinants of earnings variability. This study analyses interfirm differences in earnings variability. Large-sample evidence shows how the ratio of accrual variability to cash-flow variability varies across a cross-section of firms and how these components and the correlation between contemporaneous cash flows and accruals are related to key economic fundamentals.