Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of four enteropathogens in the faeces of young diarrhoeic dairy calves in Switzerland

The prevalences of Cryptosporidium parvum, rotavirus, bovine coronavirus (bcv), and enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (E coli k99) were determined in diarrhoeic dairy calves aged one to 21 days on 71 dairy farms in western Switzerland during the winter of 2005 to 2006. Faecal samples from 147 untreated calves suffering from acute diarrhoea were analysed by standardised diagnostic methods, and the immunoglobulin status of each calf was evaluated. The prevalences of C parvum, rotavirus, bcv and E coli k99 were 55·0 per cent, 58·7 per cent, 7·8 per cent and 5·5 per cent, respectively. The proportions of herds positive for the respective pathogens among the herds with diarrhoeic calves were 41·7 per cent, 52·1 per cent, 2·1 per cent and 2·1 per cent. The immunoglobulin concentration in the serum of 90·5 per cent of the diarrhoeic calves was below 8 g/l.
Identification of the main site factors and management intensity affecting the establishment of Short-Rotation-Coppices (SRC) in Northern Italy through stepwise regression analysis

Data collected from 183 poplar and 102 willow SRC experimental plots, located in Central-North Italy, were subjected to stepwise regression analysis to acquire information on the environmental factors affecting plant survival and productivity in the first two-year rotation cycle. Nine Populus ×canadensis Mönch, eight P. deltoids Bartr. clones and four hybrids of Sali× matsudana Koidz were included in analysis. Independent variables were: annual and seasonal water availability (rainfall and irrigation), annual mean air temperature, soil texture, pH, N and organic matter content, planting density and management intensity. Dependent variables were: a) mean annual yield during the first two-year rotation cycle in tons per hectare per year of dry matter (Odt·ha−1·y−1); b) plant survival at the end of the second year from planting (%). Water availability resulted the main variable driving plant survival and biomass production in both poplar and willow clones. Water availability appeared to be the principal factor affecting the establishment of poplar and willow energy plantations in the Po valley. Possible variations in the rainfall regime consequent to climate changes could seriously influence land suitability to SRC. Experimental data also indicate that choice of planting density may increase the biomass yield during the first two-year especially with P. deltoides clones.
HRM professionals and their perceptions of HRM and firm performance in the Philippines

This paper reports the findings of a study conducted in the Philippines that examines the extent of adoption of human capital-enhancing human resource (HR) and industrial relations (IR) practices. Differences between locally owned and other organizations in these practices and their relationship to firm performance were also investigated. Questionnaire responses were obtained from managers and union representatives from 128 organizations located in the Philippines. The results indicated that there was, on average, a fairly high level of adoption of practices consistent with a strategic approach to human resource management (HRM), with foreign-owned firms tending to show a slightly higher level of adoption of such practices. A scale representing the adoption of a more conciliatory and union-friendly IR approach was found to be a significant predictor of perceived firm performance. Surprisingly, the level of strategic integration between HRM and business planning and most human capital-enhancing HR practices were not significant predictors of perceived firm performance. Research and practical implications in relation to the role of HRM in enhancing firm performance are discussed.
Visual estimate of percent of carcinoma predicts recurrence after radical prostatectomy.

PURPOSE Tumor volume is an important prognosticator for predicting prostate cancer recurrence following radical prostatectomy (RP). We assessed the ability of the visual estimate of the percent of carcinoma (VEPC) to predict recurrence. METHODS AND MATERIALS As performed by 1 surgeon (MSS), 1,114 men underwent radical prostatectomy between 1992 and February 2002. Patients who had less than 12 months of followup, who underwent salvage RP or in whom VEPC was not assessed in the pathology specimen were excluded. VEPC and other clinical variables were analyzed. We performed univariate analysis using the Kaplan-Meier log rank test. Multivariate analysis using Cox proportional hazards regression was performed. RESULTS A total of 692 patients with a mean age of 61 +/- 7 years met the criteria for this analysis. Mean followup was 52 +/- 30 months. Of the patients 17% had biochemical recurrence. Mean VEPC was 25% and 13% in those with and without recurrence, respectively. On univariate analysis all variables were significant predictors of recurrence. However, multivariate analysis showed that the only significant predictors of recurrence were patient age, initial prostate specific antigen 10 ng/ml or greater, RP Gleason 8 to 10, extraprostatic extension, seminal vesicle involvement and VEPC. Based on disease-free survival curves patients were stratified into 3 broad groups, namely low, intermediate and high volume. The HR for biochemical recurrence was 2.1 for the intermediate VEPC group (9.1% to 20%) and 2.7 for the high VEPC group (greater than 20%). In the reference group it was less than 9% (low volume). CONCLUSIONS VEPC is a simple and inexpensive method that is an independent predictor of recurrence after RP.
The disclosure of directors' share option information in UK companies

This paper considers the empirical determinants of the quality of information disclosed about directors' share options in a sample of large companies in 1994 and 1995. Policy recommendations, consolidated in the recommendations of the Greenbury report, argue for full and complete disclosure of director option information. In this paper two modest contributions to the UK empirical literature are made. First, the current degree of option information disclosure in the FTSE 350 companies is documented. Second, option information disclosure as a function of variables that are thought to influence corporate costs of disclosure is modelled. The results have implications for corporate governance. Specifically, support is offered for the monitoring function of nonexecutive directors. In addition, nondisclosure is found to be related to variables which proxy proprietary costs of revealing information (such as company size).
Computer-Mediated Communication and Strategies for Teaching

Although journalism and mass communication educators have experimented broadly with computer applications in the last twenty years, one application remains on the periphery: computer-mediated communication (CMC). CMC is defined as communication among individuals facilitated by computer hardware, software, and a hardwire or telecommunications link. Software design has shaped CMC into many forms, including electronic mail, bulletin boards, conferencing, and chats. Computer-mediated communication has not received much attention from journalism and mass communication educators because it has been perceived to be beyond our sphere of relevance. As Denis McQuail has observed, CMC lies in a blurred territory “between ‘mass’ and individual communication as well as between private and public spheres of communication. ”
A coiled-coil motif that sequesters ions to the hydrophobic core

Most core residues of coiled coils are hydrophobic. Occasional polar residues are thought to lower stability, but impart structural specificity. The coiled coils of trimeric autotransporter adhesins (TAAs) are conspicuous for their large number of polar residues in position d of the core, which often leads to their prediction as natively unstructured regions. The most frequent residue, asparagine (N@d), can occur in runs of up to 19 consecutive heptads, frequently in the motif [I/V]xxNTxx. In the Salmonella TAA, SadA, the core asparagines form rings of interacting residues with the following threonines, grouped around a central anion. This conformation is observed generally in N@d layers from trimeric coiled coils of known structure. Attempts to impose a different register on the motif show that the asparagines orient themselves specifically into the core, even against conflicting information from flanking domains. When engineered into the GCN4 leucine zipper, N@d layers progressively destabilized the structure, but zippers with 3 N@d layers still folded at high concentration. We propose that N@d layers maintain the coiled coils of TAAs in a soluble, export-competent state during autotransport through the outer membrane. More generally, we think that polar motifs that are both periodic and conserved may often reflect special folding requirements, rather than an unstructured state of the mature proteins.
Inducible NorA-mediated multidrug resistance in Staphylococcus aureus

The NorA protein of Staphylococcus aureus mediates the active efflux of hydrophilic fluoroquinolones from the cell, conferring low-level resistance upon the organism. The protein also is capable of transporting additional structurally diverse compounds, indicating that it has a broad substrate specificity. Increased transcription of the norA gene, leading to a greater quantity of the NorA protein within the cytoplasmic membrane, is felt to be the mechanism by which strains possessing such changes resist fluoroquinolones. S. aureus SA-1199 and its in vivo-selected derivative SA-1199B are fluoroquinolone-susceptible and -resistant isolates, respectively; SA-1199B resists hydrophilic fluoroquinolones via a NorA-mediated mediated mechanism in a constitutive manner. SA-1199-3 is an in vitro-produced derivative of SA-1199 in which NorA-mediated multidrug resistance is expressed inducibly. Compared with organisms exposed to subinhibitory concentrations of a NorA substrate for the first time, preexposure of SA-1199-3 to such a compound followed by growth in the presence of that substrate results in the elimination of a 2- to 6-h period of organism killing that occurs prior to the onset of logarithmic growth. The uptake of radiolabeled fluoroquinolone is markedly reduced by preexposure of SA-1199-3 to NorA substrates: such prior exposure also results in a dramatic increase in RNa transcripts that hybridize with a norA probe. Preexposure of SA-1199 and SA-1199B to such substrates results in small increases or no increases in these transcripts. No sequence differences between SA-1199 and SA-1199-3 within the norA gene or flanking DNA were found. It appears likely that the regulation of norA in SA-1193, which may be effected by one or more genetic loci outside the norA region of the chromosome, differs from that of SA-1199 and SA-1199B.
A theory of multineuronal dimensionality, dynamics and measurement

In many experiments, neuroscientists tightly control behavior, record many trials, and obtain trial-averaged firing rates from hundreds of neurons in circuits containing billions of behaviorally relevant neurons. Di-mensionality reduction methods reveal a striking simplicity underlying such multi-neuronal data: they can be reduced to a low-dimensional space, and the resulting neural trajectories in this space yield a remarkably insightful dynamical portrait of circuit computation. This simplicity raises profound and timely conceptual questions. What are its origins and its implications for the complexity of neural dynamics? How would the situation change if we recorded more neurons? When, if at all, can we trust dynamical portraits obtained from measuring an infinitesimal fraction of task relevant neurons? We present a theory that answers these questions, and test it using physiological recordings from reaching monkeys. This theory reveals conceptual insights into how task complexity governs both neural dimensionality and accurate recovery of dynamic portraits, thereby providing quantitative guidelines for future large-scale experimental design.
The impact of party polarization and postmaterialism on voter turnout

Previous research on voter turnout has concluded that institutional factors such as compulsory voting, registration laws and the degree of disproportionality of the electoral system have a determining impact on the number of people who cast their ballots. This article goes beyond such an institutional explanation. It is hypothesized that a diverse political landscape which offers a great menu of political choices to electors is more likely to have a higher voter turnout than a political system in which the differences between the parties are small. The greater the range of political expression available the more people are stimulated to vote. This study found that countries with a high party polarization have significantly higher turnout rates than countries with a rather narrow political spectrum. In addition, countries in which a ‘postmaterialist party’is present in the national parliament also display significantly higher voter turnout rates than countries which lack such a party. In order to explain the determinants of voter turnout, not only institutional variables but also intrinsically political variables such as the number of parties, the type of parties and party polarization have to be introduced. To solve the puzzle of varying voter turnout rates, ‘politics’has to be brought back in.
EEG-based online two-dimensional cursor control

This study aims to explore whether human intentions to move or cease to move right and left hands can provide four spatiotemporal patterns in single-trial non-invasive EEG signals to achieve a two-dimensional cursor control. Subjects performed motor tasks by either physical movement or motor imagery. Spatial filtering, temporal filtering, feature selection and classification methods were explored to support accurate computer pattern recognition. The performance was evaluated by both offline classification and online two-dimensional cursor control. Event-related desynchronization (ERD) and post-movement event-related synchronization (ERS) were observed on the contralateral hemisphere to the moving hand for both physical movement and motor imagery. The offline classification of four motor tasks provided 10-fold cross-validation accuracy as high as 88% for physical movement and 73% for motor imagery. Subjects participating in experiments with physical movement were able to complete the online game with the average accuracy of 85.5±4.65%; Subjects participating in motor imagery study also completed the game successfully. The proposed brain-computer interface (BCI) provided a new practical multi-dimensional method by noninvasive EEG signal associated with human natural behavior, which does not need long-term training.
The Validity of Consumption Data: Are the Consumer Expenditure Interview and Diary Surveys Informative?

This paper examines the quality of data collected in the Consumer Expenditure (CE) Survey, which is the source for the Consumer Price Index weights and is the main source of U.S. consumption microdata. We compare reported spending on a large number of categories of goods and services to comparable national income account data. We do this separately for the two components of the CE--the Interview Survey and the Diary Survey--rather than a combination that has been used in past comparisons. We find that most of the largest categories of consumption are measured well in the Interview Survey as the ratio to the national account data is close to one and has not declined appreciably over time. Several other large categories are reported at a low rate or have seen the ratio to the national accounts decline over time. The results are less encouraging for the Diary Survey. There is no large Diary category that is both measured well and reported at a higher rate than in the Interview Survey. We also compare the ownership of and the value of durables, such as homes and cars, in the CE to other sources. This evidence suggests the CE performs fairly well. Based on observable characteristics, the CE Survey appears to be fairly representative, although there is strong evidence of under-representation at the top of the income distribution and under-reporting of income and expenditures at the top. We then examine the precision of the two surveys and the frequency of no spending overall or for a given spending category. In the Diary Survey, we find much greater dispersion in spending and the dispersion relative to the Interview Survey varies across goods and over time. Diary respondents are much more likely to report zero spending for a consumption category, and a high and increasing fraction of respondents reporting zero for all categories. These results suggest that using Diary data to assess inequality trends and other distributional outcomes is likely to lead to biased and misleading results. Our results have important implications for interpreting and properly using CE data and how best to redesign the CE.
Lobbying Institutional Key Players: How States Seek to Influence the European Commission, the Council Presidency and the European Parliament

In governance arrangements on the local, state, regional and international levels, lobbying as a strategy to gain influence on policy outcomes via informal channels takes place. While most studies focus on how individuals, companies, interest groups or non-governmental organizations try to exert influence via state actors, we know much less about whether and how frequently states themselves engage in lobbying. How effectively do state actors seek to further their own preferences informally in lobbying institutional key actors in governance arrangements beyond the nation-state? To shed light on these blind spots, this article draws on the example of the European Union and analyses the conditions under which states are especially inclined to use this informal influence strategy as well as the conditions for lobbying success. Is shows that states use lobbying strategies more often, the more capacities they possess, the lower the transaction costs of lobbying and also the stronger their incentives of getting active are for particular policies. Additionally, it is not only a high frequency of lobbying that increases the chances of informally influencing policies, but also the type of reasoning applied, its quality and its fit to the nature of the issue at stake.
Exchange Rates and the Role of the Trade Balance Account

The essence of the modern asset‐market approach to the analysis of exchange rate behavior includes the role of the trade balance account. We examine the relationship between exchange rate changes and US trade balance announcements. Statistically significant exchange rate adjustments to these announcements are documented using for the first time the comparison period approach to testing the significance of trade balance announcements on exchange rates. The evidence is consistent with the predictions of the modern asset‐market exchange rate model. There is also evidence that the foreign exchange market is more sensitive to increasing rather than decreasing trade balance deficit announcements. To date, a number of theoretical papers have investigated the possible sources of the exchange rate determination process (see, Dornbusch [1976,1980], Dornbusch and Fisher [1980], Frenkel [1976, 1981], Kouri [1976], and Mussa [1982], among others). There is no consensus on how exchange rates are determined and why they.
O Możliwości Doskonalenia Polityki Cenowej Przy Pomocy Metody Conjoint Measurement Oraz Regresji Hedonicznej (On the Possibility of Improving Pricing Policy Using Conjoint Measurement Method and the Hedonic Regression)

Polish Abstract: Zarowno w metodzie conjoint measurement jak i w technikach regresji hedonicznej zaklada sie, ze produkt jest wiązką charakterystyk (atrybutow) jakościowych. W technikach regresji hedonicznej dekomponuje sie cene produktu na kombinacje cen indywidualnych, pojedynczych cech - charakterystyk. Techniki conjoint measurement umozliwiają z kolei pomiar (szacunkowy) uzyteczności cząstkowych przypisanych (przez konsumenta) do indywidualnych cech (poziomow wartości charakterystyk produktow). Stosując lącznie obie wspomniane techniki uzyskuje sie unikalną mozliwośc przewidywania skutkow polityki cenowej, solidne podstawy projektowania polityki cenowej dają: Uzyskane z zastosowania technik conjoint measurement oszacowania uzyteczności cząstkowych wskazujących hipotetyczne (przewidywane, prognozowane) wagi przypisywane przez konsumenta indywidualnym cechom (atrybutom) jakościowym (dokladniej poziomom wartości tych cech). Uzyskane z zastosowania technik regresji hedonicznej oszacowania obserwowanych w przeszlości na rynku cen indywidualnych cech (dokladniej poziomow wartości tych cech). English Abstract: Both, in the conjoint measurement method and in the hedonic regression techniques, it is assumed that it is a bundle of characteristics (attributes) describing phenomenon’s quality. The hedonic regression technique decomposes the price of the product on the combination of prices of individual characteristics (features). Conjoint measurement techniques, in turn, enables the measurement (estimated) of the level of perceived utility sub-assigned (by the consumer) to the individual characteristics (feature, level of product characteristics). Using both of these techniques, it may be achieved a unique opportunity to predict the impact of pricing policies. This in turn gives solid foundation offer pricing design: Resulting from the application of conjoint measurement techniques one can estimate the level of perceived utility showing hypothetical (projected, forecasted) weight assigned by the consumer to individual characteristics (attributes) describing products quality (specifically the levels of these characteristics). Obtained from the use of hedonic regression techniques for estimating observed (historical) in the past, the market prices of individual characteristics (specifically the levels of these characteristics).