Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Karrieren im Glaspalast: Weibliche Führungskräfte in europäischen Banken

In diesem Papier wird die geschlechtsspezifische Verteilung von Fuhrungspositionen in europaischen Banken untersucht. Hierzu werden Ergebnisse einer europaweiten Befragung von Personalleiter/inne/n sowie weiblichen Fuhrungskraften in den jeweils grosten Banken der 15 EU-Mitgliedsstaaten zum Thema "Frauen in Fuhrungspositionen" herangezogen. Die Daten zeigen seit Beginn der 90er Jahre einen moderaten Anstieg des Anteils von Frauen in Fuhrungspositionen, wobei aber weiterhin eine breite Kluft zwischen dem Anteil an der Gesamtbelegschaft und ihrer Prasenz im Management besteht. Der Anteil weiblicher Fuhrungskrafte in den hochsten Spitzenpositionen ist nach wie vor sehr gering. Aus dem vermehrten Eintritt von Frauen ins Management folgen also nicht zwangslaufig entsprechende Aufstiegsmoglichkeiten von Frauen innerhalb des Managements. Weiterhin wird die Bedeutung personaler, struktureller und kultureller Ursachenbundel fur die anhaltende Unterreprasentanz von Frauen im Management allgemein, und insbesondere in hoheren Fuhrungspositionen analysiert. Hierzu werden zum einen die Einschatzungen der Personalleiter/innen in Banken sowie der betroffenen Bankmanagerinnen herangezogen. Beide Seiten stimmen darin uberein, das mit dem Aufstieg innerhalb des Managements personliche und familiare Barrieren an Gewicht verlieren, wahrend die Bedeutung von Ausschlusmechanismen zunimmt, die auf der strukturellen und kulturellen Ebene angesiedelt sind. Zum anderen geben die Karriereverlaufe und beruflichen Erfahrungen der befragten Bankmanagerinnen Auskunft daruber, wie die Frauen mit Karrierehemmnissen umgehen und welche Faktoren sie als relevant fur ihren beruflichen Erfolg ansehen. Die Studie schliest mit einer Betrachtung der Masnahmen von Banken zur Verbesserung der Situation von Frauen in Fuhrungspositionen. Die Befragung weist zwar auf eine wachsende Offenheit der Banken gegenuber allgemeinen Gleichstellungs- und Frauenforderprogrammen hin. Im Hinblick auf spezielle Fordermasnahmen fur weibliche Fuhrungskrafte und gezielte Masnahmen zum Abbau geschlechtsspezifischer Benachteiligungen im Management besteht hingegen noch deutlicher Nachholbedarf. Zur Uberwindung der in der Studie identifizierten personalen, strukturellen und kulturellen Barrieren bedarf es uber die individuelle Forderung von weiblichen Fuhrungskraften hinaus einer starkeren Verankerung der Gleichstellungspolitik im Rahmen strategischer Unternehmensziele sowie grundsatzlicher Veranderungen in der Unternehmenskultur, die sich bislang nur in den wenigsten Banken abzeichnen.
Conceptualization of Purposeful Games

This document presents a summary of my research as a doctoral student. The topic of my research is "Conceptualization of Purposeful Games". I am interested in knowing how designers conceptualize games that resolve the duality of fun and purpose effectively. I have conducted pilot studies and the results are encouraging. This document presents my research situation, research question, my approach to answering this question, and the expected contributions of the research.
On the role of public capital in production

This thesis examines the role of public capital, in particular, "core infrastructure", in private sector production in the United States. The underlying theme is the importance of the individual infrastructure stocks, in particular highways and streets, water and sewer systems and "other structures". Two different empirical approaches are used to shed light on a number of issues. In the first study in Chapter 3, two cost function models are estimated using data for the total private business sector, one using aggregate infrastructure data and the other using disaggregated infrastructure. The parameter estimates are used to calculate optimal infrastructure stocks (the optimal total infrastructure stock and the optimal individual stocks). The results reveal that, despite the fall in infrastructure investment from 1968-82, none of the infrastructure stocks was undersupplied over the sample period. The estimated output elasticities of the different infrastructure stocks are significantly lower than those obtained in previous research. In the second study in Chapter 4, use is made of recent development sin the productivity literature to construct a measure of manufacturing total factor productivity (TFP) that takes account of varying returns to scale and variable labour and capital utilisation over the cycle. The adjusted TFP measure is used to shed light on the causal relationship between infrastructure (total, core and disaggregated core) and productivity using a selection of autoregressive model-building techniques and causality testing procedures. Contrary to the stated view of many infrastructure researchers there is no evidence of "reverse causality", i.e. productivity causing infrastructure investment. There is, however, evidence that infrastructure has a small but statistically significant positive effect on TCP. Highways and other roads are the most productive types of infrastructure, followed by "other structures". When the TFP data is disaggregated, the findings is that core infrastructure affects some industries more than others, especially those that are capital intensive and have the largest motor vehicle shares.
In Vitro Dermo-Cosmetic Evaluation of Bark Extracts from Common Temperate Trees

Abstract Wood residues produced from forestry activities represent an interesting source of biologically active, high value-added secondary metabolites. In this study, 30 extracts from 10 barks of deciduous and coniferous tree species were investigated for their potential dermo-cosmetic use. The extracts were obtained from Fagus sylvatica, Quercus robur, Alnus glutinosa, Prunus avium, Acer pseudoplatanus, Fraxinus excelsior, Populus robusta, Larix decidua, Picea abies, and Populus tremula after three successive solid/liquid extractions of the barks with n-heptane, methanol, and methanol/water. All extracts were evaluated for their radical scavenging capacity, for their elastase, collagenase, and tyrosinase inhibitory activities, as well as for their antibacterial activity against gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus. In parallel, the global metabolite profiles of all extracts were established by 1D and 2D NMR and related to their biological activity. The results showed that the methanol extracts of Q. robur, A. glutinosa, L. decidua, and P. abies barks exhibit particularly high activities on most bioassays, suggesting their promising use as active ingredients in the dermo-cosmetic industry.
A longitudinal assessment of change in marijuana use with other substance use problems

ABSTRACT Background: Despite increasing marijuana use rates over the past decade, the longitudinal association between marijuana use and other substance use problems among adults is unclear. Objectives: To examine associations of self-reported changes in marijuana use and marijuana use frequency with self-reported other substance use problems over a 12-month period. Methods: Two waves (W1 and W2) of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study provided data. The study sample (N = 26,204, female = 13,261; male = 12,943, aged 18+) included W1-W2 never marijuana users, W1-W2 ex-users (used prior to 12 months of W1), and those who either quit, initiated, resumed, or continued marijuana use between W1 and W2. We used multinomial and binary logistic regression analyses. Results: The past-year marijuana use rate was 12.4% at W2. A quarter of W1 users quit using marijuana in the 12 months preceding their W2 interview, and one-third of all the W2 users were new/resumed users since W1. Compared to W1-W2 ex-users, W2 quitters were more likely to report alcohol use problems and tobacco addiction at W2. Compared to quitters, continued users were more likely to report alcohol use problems (RRR = 1.62, 95% CI = 1.27–2.07) and tobacco addiction (RRR = 1.37, 95% CI = 1.11–1.69). New users (RRR = 2.05, 95% CI = 1.12–3.74), resumed users (RRR = 2.69, 95% CI = 1.55–4.70), and continued users (RRR = 3.40, 95% CI = 2.08–5.55) reported more drug use problems. Compared to less frequent marijuana users, frequent users had greater odds of reporting alcohol use problems (RRR = 1.44, 95% CI = 1.21–1.72) and drug use problems (OR = 1.63, 95% CI = 1.19–2.23). Conclusions: Given increased prevalence of marijuana use, polysubstance use problems among marijuana users should be assessed.
Model Predictive Contouring Control for Biaxial Systems

Many biaxial contouring systems involve competing control objectives of maximizing accuracy while minimizing traversal time. A model predictive controller for contouring systems is proposed where the control inputs are determined by minimizing a cost function which reflects the tradeoff between these competing objectives, subject to state and actuator constraints. The path speed is automatically adjusted to maintain accuracy along the path, and the cost function can be tuned towards higher contouring accuracy and lower path speed, or vice versa. To facilitate real-time implementation, a linear time-varying approach is proposed. The controller is successfully implemented in real time on an X-Y table, and experimental results demonstrate that the new contouring control scheme achieves an improvement in performance compared to both industry standard and advanced tracking controllers.
A(H7N9) Virus Results in Early Induction of Proinflammatory Cytokine Responses in both Human Lung Epithelial and Endothelial Cells and Shows Increased Human Adaptation Compared with Avian H5N1 Virus

ABSTRACT Similar to H5N1 viruses, A(H7N9) influenza viruses have been associated with severe respiratory disease and fatal outcomes in humans. While high viral load, hypercytokinemia, and pulmonary endothelial cell involvement are known to be hallmarks of H5N1 virus infection, the pathogenic mechanism of the A(H7N9) virus in humans is largely unknown. In this study, we assessed the ability of A(H7N9) virus to infect, replicate, and elicit innate immune responses in both human bronchial epithelial cells and pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells, compared with the abilities of seasonal H3N2, avian H7N9, and H5N1 viruses. In epithelial cells, A(H7N9) virus replicated efficiently but did not elicit robust induction of cytokines like that observed for H5N1 virus. In pulmonary endothelial cells, A(H7N9) virus efficiently initiated infection; however, no released infectious virus was detected. The magnitudes of induction of host cytokine responses were comparable between A(H7N9) and H5N1 virus infection. Additionally, we utilized differentiated human primary bronchial and tracheal epithelial cells to investigate cellular tropism using transmission electron microscopy and the impact of temperature on virus replication. Interestingly, A(H7N9) virus budded from the surfaces of both ciliated and mucin-secretory cells. Furthermore, A(H7N9) virus replicated to a significantly higher titer at 37°C than at 33°C, with improved replication capacity at 33°C compared to that of H5N1 virus. These findings suggest that a high viral load from lung epithelial cells coupled with induction of host responses in endothelial cells may contribute to the severe pulmonary disease observed following H7N9 virus infection. Improved adaptation of A(H7N9) virus to human upper airway poses an important threat to public health. IMPORTANCE A(H7N9) influenza viruses have caused over 450 documented human infections with a 30% fatality rate since early 2013. However, these novel viruses lack many molecular determinants previously identified with mammalian pathogenicity, necessitating a closer examination of how these viruses elicit host responses which could be detrimental. This study provides greater insight into the interaction of this virus with host lung epithelial cells and endothelial cells, which results in high viral load, epithelial cell death, and elevated immune response in the lungs, revealing the mechanism of pathogenesis and disease development among A(H7N9)-infected patients. In particular, we characterized the involvement of pulmonary endothelial cells, a cell type in the human lung accessible to influenza virus following damage of the epithelial monolayer, and its potential role in the development of severe pneumonia caused by A(H7N9) infection in humans.
MUM‐4, a monoclonal antibody reacting with resident peritoneal mouse macrophages

A new rat monoclonal antibody, MUM‐4, which recognizes a murine antigen/epitope that is absent on monocytes, strongly expressed on resident peritoneal macrophages and almost completely absent from peritoneal macrophages 4 days after an intraperitoneal injection of thioglycollate or heat‐killed Propionibacterium acnes organisms, is described. Immunocytochemistry and flow cytometry have been used to characterize the specificity of the antibody. MUM‐4 did not react with blood granulocytes, peritoneal exudate granulocytes, lymphocytes from blood or peritoneum, isolated spleen dendritic cells, or veiled cells from the thoracic duct of mesenteric lymphadenectomized mice. The MUM‐4 antibody reacted with resident peritoneal macrophages from all the mouse strains studied. MUM‐4 appears to represent a new specificity. The MUM‐4 antibody is of the rat IgG2c isotype and exhibits complement‐mediated cytotoxicity with rabbit complement. The staining achieved with MUM‐4 by FACS or immunocytochemical methods is intense on most resident peritoneal macrophages and the antibody should be a valuable addition to the panel of monoclonal antibodies available for studies on mouse macrophages.
Role of apolipoproteins in cholesterol efflux from macrophages to lipid microemulsion: proposal of a putative model for the pre-beta high-density lipoprotein pathway.

Lipid microemulsion of phospholipid and triglyceride with the size of low-density lipoprotein was capable of removing cholesterol from cholesterol-loaded mouse peritoneal macrophages, resulting in reduction of intracellularly accumulated cholesteryl ester. Apolipoproteins (apo) A-I, A-II, C-III, and E bound to the surface of the microemulsion did not modulate the interaction of the microemulsion with the cells in terms of the cholesterol efflux. The cholesterol removal by the microemulsion was enhanced by some 30% only when apoA-I, -A-II, and -E were present in excess to provide their free forms in the medium, but apoC-III did not show such an effect even by its excess amount. The kinetics including the results with apoC-III were consistent with a model that the apparent enhancement was due to generation of pre-beta high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-like particles upon the interaction of free apolipoproteins with macrophages [Hara, H. , & Yokoyama, S. (1991) J. Biol. Chem. 266, 3080-3086]. However, pre beta-HDL-like particle was not detected after 6- and 24-h incubation in the medium where cholesterol efflux to the emulsion was maximally enhanced by the apolipoproteins, and cholesterol and phospholipids removed from the cells were all found with the microemulsions. It was also shown separately that the lipids in pre beta-HDL-like particles generated by apoA-I and macrophages were rapidly, within the order of minutes, transferred to the apo-lipoprotein-covered microemulsions when they were incubated together. Thus, the data were consistent with a model that the free form of certain apolipoproteins, such as apoA-I, -A-II, and -E but not apoC-III, generates pre beta-HDL-like particles with cellular lipids in situ and these particles act as mediators for cholesterol transfer from the cells to other lipoproteins.
Draft Genome Sequence of the First Documented Clinical Siccibacter turicensis Isolate in Austria

ABSTRACT The nonpathogenic species Siccibacter turicensis is closely related to members of the food-associated pathogenic genus Cronobacter and has been detected in fruit powders, formula, spices, and herbs. Here, we report on the first clinical isolate of S. turicensis, recovered from the labial angle of a patient with angular cheilitis.
Evaluation of hepatitis C surveillance in Poland in 1998

The aim was to evaluate hepatitis C surveillance in Poland during 1998. Hepatitis C reports were obtained from epidemiology offices. Public health staff were interviewed to collect information on surveillance operations. To estimate the proportion of acute cases among the total reported, a study was conducted in the Warsaw district to validate case reports. A total of 1661 (97.2%) hepatitis C cases were studied. Hepatitis C surveillance was timely and acceptable to the user, but did not provide a number of information elements required to differentiate acute from chronic cases of infection. Of the 268 case reports available in the Warsaw district, only 15 (5.6%) met the acute hepatitis C case definition. It is concluded that hepatitis C surveillance in Poland cannot provide useful incidence estimates and information regarding risk factors for acute infection. A strict case definition and a modified case form with specific questions for HCV transmission routes should be applied.
ENERGY LAW IN SUPPORT OF THE LOW-CARBON TRANSITION: LESSONS FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM AND CHINA

法律是一个重要工具让国家政府把转变提升到一个低碳精力部门。 然而，法律是国家政治和政策的仆人并且在更宽的机构的环境被嵌入，全国地并且国际性地。 英国(英国) 和中国的这比较分析证明尽管国家法律在支持转变到一个低碳的精力系统起一个作用，它玩的法律和角色的性质极大地取决于更宽的机构的环境。 英国是国会民主和开明市场经济。 因此，立法机关通过的法律为低碳的转变形成框架的关键部分。 相反，在中国的行政官的权威允许行政官通过法令和规定管理精力部门，并且减少法律的角色立法机关过去了。 在 UK 和中国的精力法律和政策根据占优势的精力政策范例被提出：在 UK 的面向市场的规章的州的范例和在中国的一个以状态为中心的范例。 一起，这些差别在一般来说，特别地支持低碳的转变和可更新的精力的推广解释形成对照的经验。
Assessing Design Features of Virtual Keyboards for Text Entry

Objective: The present research examined design of a virtual keyboard for text entry with a rotary controller, emphasizing users who differ in age and system experience. Background: Existing research has minimally addressed usage frequency, age, and the effects of display shape and letter arrangement on movement and visual search components of text entry tasks. The present research was conducted to close these gaps. Method: Two experiments were completed to examine younger (18—28 years) and older (60—75 years) adults' movement and visual search capabilities using four keyboard shapes and three keyboard arrangements. In a third experiment examining combined effects on shape design, 32 younger (18—28 years) and 32 older (60—75 years) adults entered words on the two best shapes from the first experiments. Results: For the movement task, movement time was lowest for shapes with higher shape-controller compatibility. For the visual search task, search time and accuracy were best on the alphabetic arrangement. In the combined task, shape did not significantly influence performance at different levels of practice. Transfers, however, suggested that the shape with salient visual features elicited a text entry strategy for older adults that may promote more consistent performance under occasional usage. Conclusion: The studies together demonstrate that keyboard shape is important for efficient performance. Shape-controller compatibility facilitated performance in both age groups. Salient features facilitate performance, especially for older adults. In nearly all cases alphabetic arrangement yielded the best performance. Application: Recommendations are provided for virtual keyboard design for different usage frequencies, contexts, and users.
Intellectual Property, Innovation, And Growth: Introduction To The Special Issue

The article discusses various reports published within this special issue which focuses on economic analyses of aspects of intellectual property rights on technological innovation and growth, including one by Bronwyn Hall on how the heterogeneous issuance of patents creates a variety of incentives and implications for innovators, one by Tetsugen Haruyama on how economic innovation can exist without technological innovation, and one by Luca Spinesi on the international dimensions of technological innovations in symmetrical countries.
Diagnosis of asymptomatic primary hyperparathyroidism: proceedings of the Fourth International Workshop.

OBJECTIVE Asymptomatic primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) is a common clinical problem. The purpose of this report is to provide an update on the use of diagnostic tests for this condition in clinical practice. PARTICIPANTS This subgroup was constituted by the Steering Committee to address key questions related to the diagnosis of PHPT. Consensus was established at a closed meeting of the Expert Panel that followed. EVIDENCE Each question was addressed by a relevant literature search (on PubMed), and the data were presented for discussion at the group meeting. CONSENSUS PROCESS Consensus was achieved by a group meeting. Statements were prepared by all authors, with comments relating to accuracy from the diagnosis subgroup and by representatives from the participating professional societies. CONCLUSIONS We conclude that: 1) reference ranges should be established for serum PTH in vitamin D-replete healthy individuals; 2) second- and third-generation PTH assays are both helpful in the diagnosis of PHPT; 3) normocalcemic PHPT is a variant of the more common presentation of PHPT with hypercalcemia; 4) serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations should be measured and, if vitamin D insufficiency is present, it should be treated as part of any management course; 5) genetic testing has the potential to be useful in the differential diagnosis of familial hyperparathyroidism or hypercalcemia.
Breaking the Synchronization Bottleneck with Reconfigurable Transactional Execution

The advent of FPGA-based hybrid architecture offers the opportunity of customizing memory subsystems to enhance the overall system performance. However, it is not straightforward to design efficient FPGA circuits for emerging FPGAs applications such as in-memory database and graph analytics, which heavily depend on concurrent data structures (CDS’). Highly dynamic behaviors of CDS’ have to be orchestrated by synchronization primitives for correct execution. These primitives induce overwhelming memory traffic for synchronizations on FPGAs. This paper proposes a novel method for systematically exploring and exploiting memory-level parallelism (MLP) of CDS by transactional execution on FPGAs. Inspired by the idea that semantics of transactions can be implemented in a more efficient and scalable manner on FPGAs than on CPUs, we propose a transaction-based reconfigurable runtime system for capturing MLP of CDS’. Experiments on linked-list and skip-list show our approach achieves 5.18x and 1.55x throughput improvement on average than lock-based FPGA implementations and optimized CDS algorithms on a state-of-the-art multi-core CPU respectively.
Higher Education in Ethiopia: Expansion, Quality Assurance and Institutional Autonomy

This article chronicles the key challenges facing Ethiopia as it embarks on an ambitious, ideologically-driven and aggressive expansion of its higher education system in an effort to address its national goals of economic growth and poverty reduction. It is argued that the urge for higher education expansion has placed undue pressures particularly on the state of quality enhancement and autonomy of universities. As government pressures for more expansion mounted, universities struggled with dwindling per student budgetary allocations, shortage of qualified staff, inadequate supply of much needed inputs and the erosion of their autonomy. It is suggested that while higher education expansion remains an important goal for Ethiopia for many years to come, a reasonable balance should be struck between the ideological aspects of expansion and the practical realities of limited resources, heightened concerns about the quality of student learning and the autonomy of universities.