Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Glucose inhibits development of hamster 8-cell embryos in vitro.

Relative preferences of energy substrates (glucose, pyruvate, and lactate) for in vitro development of hamster 8-cell embryos were investigated. Using protein-free modified Tyrode's medium (TLP-PVA) containing 10 mM lactate (L), 0.1 mM pyruvate (P), and amino acids (Phe, Ile, Met and Gln), we found that development of hamster 8-cell embryos to blastocysts was supported better in the absence of glucose than in medium containing (standard) 5 mM glucose (88.1% and 50%, respectively). Addition of even 0.25 mM glucose to the medium significantly inhibited blastocyst formation (54.1%). Medium T-PVA, containing 5 mM glucose as sole energy substrate (without pyruvate, lactate, and amino acids), very poorly supported embryo development (less than or equal to 7.9% blastocysts), but addition of 0.1 mM pyruvate enhanced blastocyst formation (52%). Elimination of pyruvate in TL-PVA medium containing 5 mM glucose and amino acids markedly reduced blastocyst formation by 4-fold (13.5%); the optimal pyruvate concentration was 0.2 mM. However, if the same medium was devoid of glucose, blastocyst formation was high both in the absence (71.1%) and presence (83.3%) of 0.1 mM pyruvate. Similarly, in glucose-free T-PVA medium, addition of either 10 mM lactate or amino acids supported 8-cell embryo development to blastocysts (61.7% and 60.5%, respectively) as opposed to 18.8% and 30.6%, respectively, in the presence of 5 mM glucose. This augmented development in the absence of glucose is suggested to the due to the efficient conversion of lactate to pyruvate and of amino acids to amphibolic intermediates and hence their utilization via the Krebs cycle. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Culture, institutions and economic growth

Abstract: In his article ‘Institutions and Economic Development: Theory, Policy and History’, Ha-Joon Chang rightly argues that historical evidence does not irrefutably suggest that countries characterized by free markets perform better than those in which the state plays a much more prominent role. However, his method of substantiating his claims by means of examples from different sources and periods does not convince. A more systematic and theoretically founded approach is needed. This comment focuses on the cross-section versus time-series approach and the relation between culture, institutions and economic development.
Increasing Competition in the British Electricity Spot Market

This paper models the effect of three policies that could increase the amount of competition in the electricity spot market in England and Wales. It uses a linear supply function model with asymmetric firms. The paper finds that the regulator's chosen policy, partial divestiture, should lead to a substantial reduction in deadweight losses. Splitting up the dominant firms would have more effect but is unlikely to be politically feasible, while encouraging competitive entry 'in advance of need' would tend to reduce welfare. Copyright 1996 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Indian executives' perceptions of expatriate managers

In this era of globalisation, the multinational companies from eastern and western part of the globe are opening their subsidiaries or Joint Ventures in the developing countries and posting the expatriates at different locations. The authors had undertaken the task of understanding the functioning of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) in India. The data was collected from four MNCs (two from eastern countries, i.e. Japan and South Korea and two from western, i.e. Sweden and British) operating in India. One of the research objectives of the study was to understand the perception of Indian executives/workforce of the expatriates posted in India. The study inferred that the perception of Indian executives was more positive about the expatriates from the west than the expatriates from the eastern countries and can be suitably used for improving the interpersonal relationship of the employees of the parent company and the host country (developing countries).
The purification and characterization of the low molecular weight human folate binding protein using affinity chromatography.

The low molecular weight folate binding protein (FABP) has been purified 1000-fold to a specific activity of 7.2 gamma g of pteroylglutamic acid (PGA) bound per mg of protein. This purified FABP represents two protein bands that bind PGA on polyacrylamide disc gel electrophoreis, elutes from DEAE-cellulose in 0.001 M phosphate buffer, stains positive with PAS, Elutes from concanavalin A Sepharose affinity columns with methyl alpha-mannoside, and shows three major peaks (pl =6.8, 7.5, 8.2) by isotric focusing. The binding of PGA to purified FABP dependent on pH and is inhibited by urea.
The Economic Aspects of Advertising

Оценивается влияние рекламы на общественное благосостояние и распределение ресурсов между различными сферами использования. Реклама рассматривается как антиконкурентная, по своей сути, практика, в частности из-за того, что она снижает ценовую эластичность спроса и служит определенным барьером для входа в отрасль потенциальных конкурентов.
Measurement error in short-term power testing in young people

The aim of this study was to examine the consistency or reproducibility of measuring cycling peak power in children and adults. Twenty-seven pre-pubertal girls and boys and 27 female and male physical education students (age 9.8±0.5 and 24.4±4.3 years, respectively; mean±s) participated in the study. All participants performed five tests over 15 days and underwent a habituation session before the study. Each test included four sprints against four different braking forces. We found that braking forces of 7.5% of body weight in children and 10% of body weight in adults were too high for most of the participants to elicit maximal cycling power. Unlike the children, the physical education students improved their performance between session 1 and session 2 (1025±219 vs 1069±243 W; P<0.001). Therefore, to obtain reproducible measures of cycling peak power, a habituation session including a complete test protocol (i.e. warm-up plus three sprints) is highly recommended. When the protocol included three sprints in children and at least two sprints in adults, measurement of cycling peak power was found to be highly reliable (test-retest coefficient of variation ∼3%). Finally, to avoid performance fluctuations, especially over several consecutive evaluations (e.g. longitudinal studies), it is necessary to maintain high motivation in children.
The Tobacco Industry of Southern Rhodesia

OUTHERN Rhodesia, which until WVorld War II was a relatively insignificant producer of fluecured tobacco, now ranks among the world's leading tobacco exporters. Before the war, although a vast potential of suitable farmland and cheap native labor gave scope for expansion, the tobacco industry was handicapped by high transportation costs. Of late, however, the dollar shortage of the sterling area, together with sterling devaluation, has given a marked fillip to the industry. Since 1945, when tobacco surpassed gold as the premier export of Southern Rhodesia, production has more than doubled, and in 1950, despite an increase in base-metal output, tobacco accounted for more than twofifths of the Colony's exports. As a result, the tobacco industry, which in many aspects contrasts sharply with that of the United States, has become the mainstay of the country's economy, and the distribution of tobacco cultivation, which is closely controlled by physical and economic factors and reveals marked regional characteristics, has undergone significant changes.
Clone Theory and Algebraic Logic

The concept of a clone is central to many branches of mathematics, such as universal algebra, algebraic logic, and lambda calculus. Abstractly a clone is a category with two objects such that one is a countably infinite power of the other. Left and right algebras over a clone are covariant and contravariant functors from the category to that of sets respectively. In this paper we show that first-order logic can be studied effectively using the notions of right and left algebras over a clone. It is easy to translate the classical treatment of logic into our setting and prove all the fundamental theorems of first-order theory algebraically.
Changes in Forest Area in Africa 1990–2005

SUMMARY The forest area in Africa is estimated at 635 million hectares, equivalent to 21 percent of the total land area, or about 0.7 hectares per person. It ranges from undisturbed primary forests (an estimated 9 percent) to modified natural forests (87 percent), semi-natural forests (1 percent) and forest plantations (3 percent). The net loss of forests remains alarmingly high at an estimated 4.0 million hectares per annum between 2000 and 2005. However, the rate of loss is decreasing when compared to the 1990s and is lower than previously assessed. These and other findings of the recently concluded Global Forest Resources Assessment 2005 provide a detailed picture of the current status and trends related to forests in Africa. The findings also show that the rate of afforestation is increasing, as is the area of forest designated for the conservation of biological diversity. Yet, African forests remain under threat from population growth and unsustainable forestry and agricultural practices.
The OMC: An Opaque Method of Consideration or Deliberative Governance in Action?

Abstract The Open Method of Coordination (OMC) is a new mode of European Union (EU) governance which, according to political rhetoric, aims to install (elements of) deliberative governance at the level. The article provides an empirical assessment of whether and how deliberative processes are actually induced in the practical implementation of the method. It presents results of a series of interviews conducted with members of the Employment Committee of the EU. The collected empirical material suggests that, in spite of initial expectations, the OMC (so far) falls short in establishing a novel deliberative basis of legitimacy for EU governance.
Do Courses in Business Ethics Pay off?

About 56 percent of graduate schools of business administration offer courses in the socioethical issues of business. This article reports one such course, taught at Dartmouth's Tuck School in 1961. Ten years later the author surveyed his former students on ethical issues and found that they have been helped in business decision making by their course in ethics as MBA students.
Systematic review: height-adjustable workstations to reduce sedentary behaviour in office-based workers.

BACKGROUND Time spent sitting in the workplace is an important contributor to overall sedentary risk. Installation of height-adjustable workstations has been proposed as a feasible approach for reducing occupational sitting time in office workers. AIMS To provide an accurate overview of the controlled trials that have evaluated the effects of height-adjustable workstation interventions on workplace sitting time in office-based workers. METHODS A comprehensive search was conducted up until March 2014 in the following databases: Medline, PsychINFO, CENTRAL, EMBASE and PEDro. To identify unpublished studies and grey literature, the reference lists of relevant official or scientific web pages were also checked. Studies assessing the effectiveness of height-adjustable workstations using a randomized or non-randomized controlled design were included. RESULTS The initial search yielded a total of 8497 citations. After a thorough selection process, five studies were included with 172 participants. A formal quality assessment indicated that risk of bias was high in all studies and heterogeneity in interventions and outcomes prevented meta-analysis. Nevertheless, all studies reported that height-adjustable workstation interventions reduced occupational sitting time in office workers. There was insufficient evidence to determine effects on other relevant health outcomes (e.g. body composition, musculoskeletal symptoms, mental health). CONCLUSIONS There is insufficient evidence to make firm conclusions regarding the effects of installing height-adjustable workstations on sedentary behaviour and associated health outcomes in office workers. Larger and longer term controlled studies are needed, which include more representative populations.
Surface Treatment by Atmospheric-Pressure Surfatron Jet

Using an atmospheric-pressure surface-wave-driven jet, the surfatron, we carried out the surface treatment of the silicon, polyamide, and wood. The changes in surface energy of the samples were determined by the contact angle measurements. Some of the results show rather quick treatment time, probably due to a high power density in the surfatron device.
Development of tourism in Poland: policy implications

This research note aims to discuss policy implications for the development of tourism in Poland. It takes as its premise that the country has considerable tourist potential, which has not been fully tapped. Hence, with emphasis placed on Poland's destination attractiveness, we identify weaknesses that hold back the growth of the tourism industry. It is argued that the development of various forms of tourism might foster the diversification of economic activity and encourage the creation of jobs, in particular in poorer rural or remote communities. For this to happen, however, a re-orientation of economic and environmental policies is called for.
Seizing the mantle of change: Modeling candidate quality as effectiveness instead of valence

In spatial models of electoral competition, candidate quality is typically modeled as valence, a measure of general appeal assumed to be constant across voters. This paper introduces and formally models an alternative conception of candidate quality according to which candidates differ in their effectiveness, or likelihood of changing policy from the status quo. Although more effective candidates are electorally favored, voters’ benefits from effectiveness are contingent on their policy preferences. The effectiveness model shares many qualitative features with the valence model, but adds several testable implications related to the position of the status quo and gives rise to non-monotonic voting. When valence and effectiveness are combined, valence dominates effectiveness in determining the winner if and only if the status quo policy is sufficiently close to the political center.
Intermittency in Stock Market Dynamics

This article uses the critical fluctuations method in physics to detect intermittent fluctuations in stock market dynamics. The method is able to extract self-similar patterns based on the distribution of properly defined laminar lengths in stock prices. The authors analyze time series from the NYSE that contain share values from the last 20 years to look for non-conventional fluctuations. Similar analysis is performed for the Dow Jones Index during the same time interval. At the level of prices, the authors do not observe any signature of non-conventional statistics; however, interestingly enough, they find an excellent power-law laminar length distribution for the time series constructed from the difference between the highest and the lowest share prices or global index values within a day. The authors conclude that the evolution of the amplitude of the daily fluctuations of the share prices and the global index contains an intermittent dynamic component with critical characteristics. The article provides an original methodology derived from physics to examine stock market behaviors and empirically concludes that most “efficient” world stock markets, in fact, show deterministic patterns.
Ketamine infusion versus isoflurane for the maintenance of anesthesia in the prebypass period in children with tetralogy of Fallot.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the use of ketamine in comparison with isoflurane in the maintenance of anesthesia in children with tetralogy of Fallot. DESIGN Prospective, randomized study. SETTING University hospital. PARTICIPANTS Fifty children scheduled for correction of tetralogy of Fallot. INTERVENTIONS After intubation, patients were assigned randomly to receive 2 different anesthesia maintenance regimens: group I, isoflurane, 0 to 1% plus fentanyl, 0.1 microg/kg/min; group II, ketamine, 0 to 5 mg/kg/h, plus fentanyl, 0.1 microg/kg/min. Isoflurane concentration and ketamine infusion rate were adjusted to maintain arterial pressure within 25% of baseline. Hemodynamic and respiratory parameters were recorded at the end of 4 intervals: T0, before induction of anesthesia; T1, induction to 10 minutes postintubation; T2, 10 minutes postintubation to poststernotomy; and T3, poststernotomy to completion of catheterizations. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS In comparing group I with group II, significant differences were observed in mean arterial pressure (p < 0.0001), heart rate (p < 0.01), arterial oxygen saturation (p < 0.0001), arterial oxygen tension (p < 0.001), arterial carbon dioxide tension (p < 0.001), arterial pH (p < 0.0001), base excess (p < 0.05), and arterial to end-tidal carbon dioxide tension difference (p < 0.01) at T3. CONCLUSION The use of ketamine anesthesia is recommended as an alternative maintenance regimen in children undergoing definitive correction of tetralogy of Fallot.
Dengue Infection Presenting With Central Nervous System Manifestation

The objective of this study was to investigate the possibility of dengue virus infection causing an abnormal neurologic presentation. Between 1996 and 1998, all pediatric patients with clinical manifestations of encephalitis-like illness who were admitted to the Department of Pediatrics, Siriraj Hospital were prospectively studied for any evidence of dengue virus infection. The diagnosis of dengue virus infection was based on mosquito viral isolation and serologic and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) evidence. Of 44 patients with the preliminary diagnosis of acute viral encephalitis, 8 were diagnosed with dengue infection. All of these 8 patients were diagnosed by serology. In addition to the serologic diagnosis, four also had positive PCR, one had positive viral isolation, and one had both positive PCR and viral isolation. Only two patients were diagnosed by serologic evidence alone. All except one had clinical courses and laboratory findings compatible with typical dengue infection. All had obvious encephalitic clinical manifestations with normal cerebrospinal fluid findings except one patient, who had mildly increased cerebrospinal fluid protein. All of these patients recovered completely and had benign clinical courses except one patient, who developed leakage symptoms. None had liver failure. Dengue virus can cause acute encephalopathy with fever. It can masquerade as other types of acute viral encephalitis. However, its clinical course and prognosis are usually favorable (J Child Neurol 2000; 15:544-547).
Hyaluronic acid skin fillers: adverse reactions and skin testing.

BACKGROUND Hyaluronic acid (HA) fillers have been proposed as alternatives to other temporary skin fillers, such as bovine collagen, for treating facial skin lines and for providing lip augmentation. Several types of commercial HA fillers are now available in many countries. They include Restylane, which is produced by microbiologic engineering techniques, and Hylaform, which is HA extract derived from rooster combs. They have been approved for use in several countries, but not currently in the United States. There are no recommendations to perform pretreatment skin testing by the manufacturers. OBJECTIVE Our purpose is to describe and comment on our experiences with Hylaform and Restylane fillers. Observation of any side effects and skin testing results were documented. METHODS Between September 1996 and September 2000, 709 patients were treated with Hylaform and Restylane and were followed up clinically for at least 1 year. Three of these patients (0.42%) developed delayed skin reactions. Three other patients were referred for evaluation of their skin reactions from other practitioners. Five of these 6 patients agreed to skin testing of their forearms. RESULTS In the 5 patients tested, challenge intradermal skin testing was positive in 4 patients; the reactions started approximately 8 weeks after injection. CONCLUSIONS There was a slight incidence of delayed inflammatory skin reactions to two HA fillers. Both of these reactions occurred after the first and repeat injections. Challenge skin testing was positive in 4 of 5 tested patients.
The quadratic Gaussian CEO problem

The following problem in multiterminal source coding was introduced in Berger and Zhang (see 1994 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, Trondheim, Norway). A firm's CEO is interested in a data sequence {X(t)}/sup /spl infin///sub t=1/ which cannot be observed directly. The CEO em ploys a team of L agents who observe independently corrupted versions of{X(t)}/sub /spl infin/t=1/. Let R be the total data rate at which the agents may communicate information about their observations to the CEO. The agents are not allowed to convene. Breger et al. determine the asymptotic behavior of the minimal error frequency in the limit as L and R tend to infinity. Their result is for discrete memoryless source and observations. We consider a special case of the continuous source and observations problem. We assume that the source is an i.i. d sequence of zero mean Gaussian random variables (/spl Nscr/(0,/spl sigma//sup 2//sub X/)) and the observations are corrupted by identical independent memoryless Gaussian noise (/spl Nscr/(0,/spl sigma//sup 2//sub N/)). The CEO is interested in reconstructing the source with minimum mean squared error. We study the asymptotic behavior of the minimum achievable distortion in the limit as first L and then R tends to infinity.
Ru/Ru-oxide interlayer for CoCrPtO perpendicular recording media

A Ru/Ru-oxide interlayer combination on a Ta seedlayer was introduced in order to realize further intergranular exchange decoupling in the magnetic layer by forming Ru grains with small size and uniform distribution separated by a non-magnetic oxide phase. Higher coercivity and signal to noise ratio (SNR) were achieved with a thin Ru-oxide layer. TEM shows that both the magnetic layer and Ru/Ru-oxide interlayer have a well-defined columnar structure. It was also observed that good hetero-epitaxial relationship is maintained throughout the Ru/Ru-oxide and Ru-oxide/magnetic layer interfaces. Ru grains were also observed to be well-isolated and uniformly distributed at the top portion of the Ru/Ru-oxide interlayer . Intergranular decoupling in the magnetic layer can be realized by forming the magnetic grains on the well-isolated Ru grains without disturbing the epitaxial relationship between the magnetic layer and the interlayer.
The Economics of Nature: Managing Biological Assets

The Economics of Nature Management takes a portfolio management perspective on the worldwide deterioration of the natural environment. For many emerging countries, nature conservation boils down to the purely economic decision of "investing" limited funds in nature potentially at the expense of investing in other necessary imperatives such as education or infrastructure. As a result, the authors see the function of the book as twofold. First, to measure environmental services and biological assets and second it demonstrates how it applies the economic theory of nature management through case studies.