Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evasion of innate immunity by vaccinia virus

Vaccinia virus, a member of the Poxviridae, expresses many proteins involved in immune evasion. In this review, we present a brief characterisation of the virus and its effects on host cells and discuss representative secreted and intracellular proteins expressed by vaccinia virus that are involved in modulation of innate immunity. These proteins target different aspects of the innate response by binding cytokines and interferons, inhibiting cytokine synthesis, opposing apoptosis or interfering with different signalling pathways, including those triggered by interferons and toll-like receptors.
Estimating a Structural Search Model: The Transition from School to Work

This paper presents a finite-horizon search model that is econometrically implemented using all of the restrictions impli ed by the theory. Following a sample of male high school graduates fr om the youth cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys from graduat ion to employment, search parameters are estimated. Reservation wages and offer probabilities are estimated to be quite low. Simulations a re performed of the impact of changing the parameters on the expected duration of unemployment. Copyright 1987 by The Econometric Society.
Labor Market Developments in Albania: An Analytical Overview

Rising unemployment and falling living standards are two of the main problems facing policymakers in economies in transition. The case of Albania is distinctive, because high unemployment has been associated with a very large private sector and by far the greatest scale of temporary emigration compared with other transition countries in Europe. The authors develop a model that characterizes the path of unemployment in the presence of temporary emigration. They analyze the emigration decision and the factors that affect registered unemployment emigration, and highlight how changes in flow probabilities between sectors affect the time paths of registered unemployment and emigration.
Exchange Rate Volatility and Exports: Regional Differences between Developing and Industrialized Countries

This study uses a large panel of industrialized and developing countries to investigate the link between exchange rate volatility and exports. Although the empirical literature on this relationship is extensive, a clear consensus about its nature and importance is yet to emerge. Using fixed- and random-effects models to capture cross-country differences, pooled export equations are estimated for the entire panel and various subsets of countries. The results, which are robust across different volatility measures, indicate that negative effects exist for LDC exports, especially from Latin America and Africa, but not for exports from Asian LDCs or industrialized countries. Copyright 2001 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
CARDIOVASCULAR AND SURVIVAL PARADOXES IN DIALYSIS PATIENTS: Reverse Epidemiology beyond Dialysis Patients: Chronic Heart Failure, Geriatrics, Rheumatoid Arthritis, COPD, and AIDS

“Reverse epidemiology” refers to paradoxical and counterintuitive epidemiologic associations between survival outcomes and traditional cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Reverse epidemiology has been well described in end stage renal disease, but also has been observed in chronic disease states, including chronic heart failure, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, and in elderly populations. This review will highlight the recent medical literature on reverse epidemiology in these populations. Common pathophysiologic underpinnings in these chronic disease states may help explain the reversal of risk factors observed in these diverse populations. Furthermore, guidelines for the general population for optimal goals of weight, cholesterol levels, and blood pressure may not apply to special populations, including patients with chronic diseases or elderly persons.
Investigation of a Class of Volatility Estimators

This article examines a class o f volatility estimation models, all ofthem based on a weighted sum ofsquared deviationsjiom the meanfor historical returns. We show how some popular methods, such as RiskMetricsTM, GARCH, and non-parametric density estimation, fa l l into this class. We also conduct a briefempirical comparison ofthese methods. Wefind density estimation and RiskMetricsTMforecasts to be the most accurateforforecasting short-term interest rate Volatility.
Does one size fit all? A Taylor-rule based analysis of monetary policy for current and future EMU members

This article uses the Taylor rule to examine the appropriateness of European Central Bank (ECB) interest rate policy for the initial European Monetary Union (EMU) members and the 10 new EMU member states some of whom are expected to join the Eurozone in 2006–2007. Specifically it addresses three questions. (1) Are there differences between the interest rate aggregated from the Taylor interest rates of individual member states in the euro area and the interest rate set by the ECB? (2) For which countries do the desired interest rates according to the original Taylor rule and the interest rate of the euro area differ most and in which respect? (3) The last question is whether the interest rate gaps change over time. We find that the ECB's policy does not fit individual EMU members equally well and this result is unlikely to be changed with the addition of the 10 new members, which will have only a marginal effect on the ECB interest rate stance.
Regulatory Oversight and Return Misreporting by Hedge Funds

We use Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rule changes to show that regulatory oversight reduces return misreporting by hedge funds. Specifically, we use a 2004 rule change that expanded SEC oversight of hedge funds and the 2006 revocation of this rule. Differences-in-differences tests show that, following the rule change, misreporting by newly regulated funds decreased. After revocation, funds that exited the regulatory system increased misreporting relative to funds that remained registered. Placebo tests show no change in misreporting by foreign funds exempt from the rule change. We show that regulatory oversight increased the level of flows and decreased the sensitivity of flows to underperformance.
The Volume and Composition of Trade Between Rich and Poor Countries

North-South trade is studied in a model of vertical product differentiation. The South produces a low-quality spectrum of goods and the North a high-quality spectrum. An increase in the South's population lowers its relative wage, expands the spectrum of Southern goods at the top, and shifts the Northern spectrum upward. An increase in Northern labour productivity raises its relative wage. If the increase is neutral or export-biased, then the South's terms of trade improve, the spectrum of Northern products expands, the spectrum of Southern products contracts, and the volume of trade grows. If it is biased against Northern exports, these effects are reversed. Similar results hold for neutral increases in Southern productivity.
Supporting low-income homeowners: lessons from a program to coordinate weatherization and rehabilitation services

Homeownership is the primary way most families build wealth in this country. Low-income homeowners are less likely to get that benefit because they are more likely to own older houses that are more costly to operate and need more essential maintenance. Rapidly escalating home energy costs are straining the budgets of many low-income homeowners, increasing the likelihood of under maintenance and mortgage default. This paper presents an evaluation of a demonstration program designed to coordinate weatherization and rehabilitation programs in order to assist low-income households, decrease energy costs, and to improve the condition and value of their homes. The experience of 11 local non-profit organizations, funded to develop programs to coordinate weatherization and housing rehabilitation services, were studied over a five-year period. The results of the evaluation indicate that there are many obstacles to coordinating weatherization and rehabilitation programs, but that it can be accomplished under the right conditions. Major gaps exist between program eligibility thresholds and in the types of assistance available to low-income homeowners. Policy recommendations for facilitating coordination are presented.
A Spatial Cross-Sectional Analysis of Elasticity of Demand for Soccer

Several studies estimate the demand for watching English professional football (soccer) as highly inelastic, a puzzling result given that clubs appear to possess a degree of monopoly power. We discuss weaknesses in earlier studies and offer an alternative method of assessing elasticity based on travel costs of spectators living different distances from the grounds. We find that elasticity varies across the 20 senior clubs for which data were available but in almost every case demand is more elastic than reported in the existing literature and pricing policy appears therefore to be more orientated towards profit maximisation than previously thought.
Synchronization between Financial Crisis and International Business Cycles: Evidence from Asia *

The recent financial crisis, as the most important event in the world economy, has affected countries substantially through structural changes in socio-economic and political issues. The co-movements of international business cycles have generally increased as a result of the global financial crisis and that is because of simultaneous fall in economic activity in many economies during the global financial crisis. Accordingly, Fidrmuc and Korhonen (2010) analyze the transmission of global financial crisis to business cycles in China and India, displaying a low degree of synchronization with the OECD countries, which is consistent with the decoupling hypothesis. In addition, IMF (2008) argues that the current slowdown of the world economy could have a significantly larger impact on Asian economies than earlier global downturns, because of more extensive trade and financial integration of Asian economies. The objective of this paper is to evaluate a possible synchronized relationship between recent financial crisis and international business cycles in the selected Asian countries. By using annual data of GDP growth rates during 1980-2010, we test a relationship between recent financial crisis, arising originally from the US, and international business cycles. The paper thus analyzes moving correlations between financial crisis and business cycles in Asia, using dynamic econometric methods. In addition, it studies how the financial crisis has influenced co-movements of output in Asian economies for different frequencies in the framework of the spectral analysis.
Context awareness in WBANs: a survey on medical and non-medical applications

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) applications help reduce medical costs and improve people's quality of life by monitoring a user's biological signals via wearable and implantable wireless sensors. In order to satisfy burgeoning requirements, context-aware solutions are needed, thus allowing the system to adapt to changes in the user's mood, mental states, biological signals, and the environment. Thus, contextual information must be measured alongside biological signals in order to characterize and understand the current situation to adapt the system. With these issues in mind, this survey presents an overview of context-aware solutions at the Medium Access Control (MAC) and application layers. A clear distinction between medical and non-medical applications is made and some promising latest commercial WBAN products are highlighted. We show that, despite the importance of context-awareness in WBAN applications, there are limited solutions available, particularly at the MAC layer. The survey concludes with a discussion on open research challenges for future context-aware WBANs.
Pediatric Aids in the United States: Epidemiological Reality versus Government Policy

Pediatric AIDS cases constitute approximately 2 percent of total AIDS cases in the United States, but HIV infection and AIDS among children pose a growing concern. Government policies have failed to match the epidemiological reality of the disease. The powerful shapers of public opinion have dedicated their energies to a handful of cases, involving the school attendance of primarily middle-class children. Unfortunately, coverage of school placement issues has overshadowed both the demographically more serious issue of perinatally transmitted AIDS cases and the growing concern over adolescent AIDS. Seventy-five percent of perinatal AIDS sufferers are poor, urban minorities: the disease is clearly related to other indicators of poor child health—urban poverty and oppressive social conditions. School-based prevention efforts for adolescents have been rendered impotent because of moralistic obstacles to explicit education. Prevention of perinatal and adolescent HTV transmission must be both sensitive and relevant to communities in which the greatest threat to survival is poverty, not AIDS. Ultimately, issues surrounding pediatric AIDS only reinforce the long-term position of child health advocates: the best investment a society can make is a sincere commitment of resources to improve the health, education, and welfare of its children.
Ready-made Garment Exports from Sri Lanka

Abstract With the phasing out of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA), the Sri Lankan economy, highly dependent on ready-made garment exports, has become vulnerable to the changing global trading system affecting this industry. In such a global environment, strengthening the competitiveness of the industry has become imperative for Sri Lanka if it is to remain as one of the suppliers of choice in major markets. The paper highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the industry and shows the steps that have been taken to address the latter. Additional steps taken to select specific garment products according to past performance and global positioning for further improvement and promotion are also highlighted. The paper also suggests some strategies to cope up with the new global challenges.
Galanin hyperinnervates surviving neurons of the human basal nucleus of meynert in dementias of alzheimer's and parkinson's disease: A hypothesis for the role of galanin in accentuating cholinergic dysfunction in dementia

This study summarizes the findings from postmortem examination of the brains of 22 control cases without neurological deficit, 12 cases of senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT), and nine cases of Parkinson's disease (three without signs of intellectual deterioration, four with dementia, and two atypical with dementia nonresponsive to L‐dopa treatment). The aim of this study was to find the similarities and differences in galanin innervation of the cholinergic basal nucleus neurons in these dementing disorders as compared with controls. Immunocytochemistry with antibodies against galanin peptide and against choline acetyltransferase was applied on perfused brain preparations. Galanin peptide is present in the basal nucleus of Meynert neuron networks in the normal human brain: in local circuit neurons, in a number of galanin/cholinergic neurons, and in a feedback circuit (via collaterals) that terminate upon the cholinergic neuronal somata and dendrites. Thus, peptide galanin circuits could function as powerful modulators of the activities of basal nucleus cholinergic neurons, both within the basal forebrain and in their wider projections to the neocortex and amygdala. As galanin has been shown to inhibit cholinergic activity, this galanin network could suppress the activity of cholinergic neurons. In SDAT, there is a primary loss of cholinergic neurons compounded by a secondary reaction of the remaining cholinergic neurons to the terminal degeneration in the cortex. Galanin networks demonstrate an inverse relationship to the cholinergic cell loss. Galanin axons hypertrophy and hyperinnervate the remaining cholinergic neurons. In Parkinson's disease the loss of cholinergic neurons is accentuated by the presence of dementia: the hypertrophy of the galanin axonal networks on cholinergic neurons is dramatic in Parkinson's disease with dementia.
18β‐glycyrrhetinic acid promotes src interaction with connexin43 in rat cardiomyocytes

The mechanism by which 18β‐glycyrrhetinic acid regulates gap junction intercellular communication (GJIC) remains poorly understood. In this study, treatment of cultured rat neonatal cardiomyocytes with 18β‐glycyrrhetinic acid resulted in dose‐dependent inhibition of GJIC as assessed by fluorescent dye transfer analysis. 18β‐Glycyrrhetinic acid induced time‐dependent serine/threonine dephosphorylation and redistribution of connexin43 (Cx43) in cardiomyocytes and the induced Cx43 dephosphorylation was prevented by the protein phosphatase inhibitor, calyculin A. However, functional analyses showed that the inhibitory effect of 18β‐glycyrrhetinic acid on dye spreading among cardiomyocytes was not blocked by calyculin A, but was blocked by the Src‐selective tyrosine kinase inhibitor, PP2. 18β‐Glycyrrhetinic acid also induced an increase in the levels of phosphorylated Src, and this effect was prevented by PP2. Immunoprecipitation using anti‐Cx43 and anti‐p‐Src antibodies showed that 18β‐glycyrrhetinic acid increased the association between p‐Src and Cx43 and induced tyrosine phosphorylation of Cx43. We conclude that the inhibitory effect of 18β‐glycyrrhetinic acid on GJIC in cardiomyocytes involves Src‐mediated tyrosine phosphorylation of Cx43. J. Cell. Biochem. 100: 653–664, 2007. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Treatment of Secondary Bacterial Infections in Atopic Eczema with Miconazole Plus Hydrocortisone

SUMMARY In this study 19 patients (aged 4-30 years) with severe atopic eczema and secondary infec tion underwent topical treatment with *Dakta cort" (miconazole 2 per cent hydrocortisone 1 per cent) for 14 days. Thirteen of these patients had previously been treated unsuccessfully with topical corticosteroids alone. There was a significant improvement in 89 per cent of patients based on clinical assess ments over the treatment period (Sign test) while 58 per cent of the patients positive bacte riologically at the start of the study were nega tive 2 weeks later. Daktacort was also rated as better than pre vious therapy by 68 per cent of patients (p < 0.01) ChP, 2-tailed test). This course 0 f treatment produced a marked improvement in the majority of patients and was preferred by them to previous treatments. No side-effects were reported.
New Methods for Inference in Long-Run Predictive Regressions

I develop new asymptotic results for long-horizon regressions with overlapping observations. I show that rather than using auto-correlation robust standard errors, the standard t-statistic can simply be divided by the square root of the forecasting horizon to correct for the effects of the overlap in the data. Further, when the regressors are persistent and endogenous, the long-run OLS estimator suffers from the same problems as does the short-run OLS estimator, and similar corrections and test procedures as those proposed for the short-run case should also be used in the long-run. In addition, I show that under an alternative of predictability, long-horizon estimators have a slower rate of convergence than short-run estimators and their limiting distributions are non-standard and fundamentally different from those under the null hypothesis. These asymptotic results are supported by simulation evidence and suggest that under standard econometric specifications, short-run inference is generally preferable to long-run inference. The theoretical results are illustrated with an application to long-run stock-return predictability.
Assurance on XBRL for Financial Reporting

SYNOPSIS: Since 2004, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken steps toward requiring eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) to be used in its filings, including a voluntary filing program. “Tagging” financial information using XBRL creates documents that are computer readable and searchable. Once XBRL is required, investors are likely to demand assurance on the tagging process. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) has issued guidance on attest engagements regarding XBRL financial information furnished under the SEC’s current voluntary filer program, which relies on the auditor “agreeing” a paper version of the XBRL-related documents to the information in the official EDGAR filing. This approach may be adequate for the current paper-oriented reporting paradigm. However, once filing in XBRL becomes required, the power of XBRL to allow individual financial datum to be extracted from the SEC’s financial database will be realized. This “data-centric” idea is a crucial ext.
Provirophages in the Bigelowiella genome bear testimony to past encounters with giant viruses

Significance Virophages are viruses that hijack the replication machinery of giant viruses for their own replication. Virophages negatively impact giant virus replication and improve the survival chances of eukaryotic cells infected by giant viruses. In this study, we identified segments of the Bigelowiella natans genome that originate from virophages and giant viruses, revealing genomic footprints of battles between these viral entities that occurred in this unicellular alga. Interestingly, genes of virophage origin are transcribed, suggesting that they are functional. We hypothesize that virophage integration may be beneficial to both the virophage and B. natans by increasing the chances for the virophage to coinfect the cell with a giant virus prey and by defending the host cell against fatal giant virus infections. Virophages are recently discovered double-stranded DNA virus satellites that prey on giant viruses (nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses; NCLDVs), which are themselves parasites of unicellular eukaryotes. This coupled parasitism can result in the indirect control of eukaryotic cell mortality by virophages. However, the details of such tripartite relationships remain largely unexplored. We have discovered ∼300 predicted genes of putative virophage origin in the nuclear genome of the unicellular alga Bigelowiella natans. Physical clustering of these genes indicates that virophage genomes are integrated into the B. natans genome. Virophage inserts show high levels of similarity and synteny between each other, indicating that they are closely related. Virophage genes are transcribed not only in the sequenced B. natans strain but also in other Bigelowiella isolates, suggesting that transcriptionally active virophage inserts are widespread in Bigelowiella populations. Evidence that B. natans is also a host to NCLDV members is provided by the identification of NCLDV inserts in its genome. These putative large DNA viruses may be infected by B. natans virophages. We also identify four repeated elements sharing structural and genetic similarities with transpovirons—a class of mobile elements first discovered in giant viruses—that were probably independently inserted in the B. natans genome. We argue that endogenized provirophages may be beneficial to both the virophage and B. natans by (i) increasing the chances for the virophage to coinfect the host cell with an NCLDV prey and (ii) defending the host cell against fatal NCLDV infections.