Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Availability to pigs of amino acids in cereal grains

1. Pigs prepared with re-entrant ileal cannulas were used to determine the ileal availability of amino acids in nine cereal grains including five wheats, sorghum (Sorghum vulgare Pers.), maize, barley and Triticale. 2. The average true availability of amino acids in these grains was 0·88 but there were consistent differences in availability among amino acids. Generally, lysine and threonine were among the least available amino acids while glutamic acid and arginine were among the most available amino acids in cereal protein. 3. There was as much variation in amino acid availability within a grain species (wheat) as among the other grains.
Viral resuppression and detection of drug resistance following interruption of a suppressive non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor-based regimen

Background: Interruption of a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI)-regimen is often necessary, but must be performed with caution because NNRTIs have a low genetic barrier to resistance. Limited data exist to guide clinical practice on the best interruption strategy to use. Methods: Patients in the drug-conservation arm of the Strategies for Management of Antiretroviral Therapy (SMART) trial who interrupted a fully suppressive NNRTI-regimen were evaluated. From 2003, SMART recommended interruption of an NNRTI by a staggered interruption, in which the NNRTI was stopped before the NRTIs, or by replacing the NNRTI with another drug before interruption. Simultaneous interruption of all antiretrovirals was discouraged. Resuppression rates 4–8 months after reinitiating NNRTI-therapy were assessed, as was the detection of drug-resistance mutations within 2 months of the treatment interruption in a subset (N = 141). Results: Overall, 601/688 (87.4%) patients who restarted an NNRTI achieved viral resuppression. The adjusted odds ratio (95% confidence interval) for achieving resuppression was 1.94 (1.02–3.69) for patients with a staggered interruption and 3.64 (1.37–9.64) for those with a switched interruption compared with patients with a simultaneous interruption. At least one NNRTI-mutation was detected in the virus of 16.4% patients with simultaneous interruption, 12.5% patients with staggered interruption and 4.2% patients with switched interruption. Fewer patients with detectable mutations (i.e. 69.2%) achieved HIV-RNA of 400 copies/ml or less compared with those in whom no mutations were detected (i.e. 86.7%; P = 0.05). Conclusion: In patients who interrupt a suppressive NNRTI-regimen, the choice of interruption strategy may influence resuppression rates when restarting a similar regimen. NNRTI drug-resistance mutations were observed in a relatively high proportion of patients. These data provide additional support for a staggered or switched interruption strategy for NNRTI drugs.
The Evolution of Life History Traits: A Critique of the Theory and a Review of the Data

In 1976, I reviewed (84) two models which give alternative explanations for the adaptation of life history traits to stable and fluctuating environments. Deterministic models (rand Kselection) predict that organisms exposed to high levels of densityindependent mortality, wide fluctuations in population density, or repeated episodes of colonization will evolve towards a combination of earlier maturity, larger broods, higher reproductive effort, and shorter lifespans than will organisms exposed to density-dependent mortality or constant population density (48, 65). Stochastic models (58, 77) predict the evolution of the same combinations of life history traits, but for different reasons: when fluctuations in the environment result in highly variable juvenile mortality, then a syndrome of delayed maturity, smaller reproductive effort, and greater longevity should evolve. Several years ago I set out to test these predictions by measuring the reproductive traits of two species of small fish that had been introduced to Hawaiian reservoirs in 1907 and 1922. Ambiguities appeared in the interpretation of the results, some of them inherent in the theory, others in the observations. I could not decide which of several possible causal systems had produced the pattern I observed. To determine what my results meant, I first tried to understand what life history data could mean in general, given the present state of our knowledge. In brief, the theory is not yet refined enough to be tested by crucial experiments that can pinpoint flaws. Under these circumstances, observation and experiment cannot falsify predictions definitively, but they can profitably arbitrate among the various simplifying assumptions that theorists may want to try out in their pursuit of unambiguous predictions that cleanly touch reality.
Cytokines and Fibrogenesis

Cytokines play a major role in the development of hepatic fibrosis, the wound-healing response of the liver to chronic injury. Major concepts in defining the role of cytokines in fibrogenesis include (1) Cytokines may be pro- or antifibrogenic; (2) autocrine, paracrine, and matrix-bound sources of cytokines are the most important; and (3) multiple mechanisms of cytokine regulation are essential to fine-tune their effects. The hepatic stellate cell is the key effector of the fibrotic response and both a principal source and target of cytokines. Activation of stellate cells connotes the conversion of a resting vitamin A-rich cell to one which is proliferative, contractile, fibrogenic, and devoid of vitamin A. The features of stellate cell activation provide a framework in which to understand how cytokines drive fibrosis. These features include (1) proliferation; (2) contractility; (3) fibrogenesis; (4) extracellular matrix degradation; (5) chemotaxis; (6) cytokine release; and (7) retinoid loss. The insights gained from illuminating the role of stellate cells has engendered realistic hopes for treating hepatic fibrosis through modulation of cytokine actions.
On the Dual Agency Problems of State Controlled Firms in China

Does government control reduce firm value? A strong government control helps the government to extract social or political benefits from a state-controlled firm, thus decreases its value; but it also makes it more effective for the government to monitor the firm management, thus increases its value. We first formally analyze these two effects and their interactions in a theoretic model of IPO. We then use the data of state-controlled listed firms in China to study the impact of government control on firm performance empirically. The strength of government control is measured by the length of the intermediate ownership chain between listed firms and their ultimate controllers, defined as "layer". Consistent with the theory predictions, we find that there exists an optimal layer at which the firm value is maximized, but the government chooses a shorter layer than the optimal level. We also find that firms with good corporate governance, as a substitution for government monitoring, has a higher optimal layer and is more efficient.
The Specification of Price in Studies of Consumer Demand under Block Price Scheduling: Comment

The problems of price variable specification in demand models of commodities priced by block schedules are well known and in 1975 Taylor suggested a ". simple, but yet substantially correct procedure . " This procedure, when modified by Nordin (1976), required both marginal price and an expenditure difference variable to be included in demand models. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to obtain data for these variables and much debate, but little evidence, about the empirical consequences of misspecification has resulted. In this comment we focus on Polzin's (1984) recent attempt to expand the empirical evidence. We find several problems with the evidence presented by Polzin and as a result we are unsatisfied with his conclusion that, "despite its theoretical and conceptual elegance, the Taylor/Nordin (price) specification may not be the best description of consumer behavior when faced with a block-rate price schedule" (1984, 309). The major problem with Polzin's approach stems from his use of aggregate data. We argue that comparisons of alternative price specifications must be based on disaggregate data for actual as opposed to representative or "typical" households. Some of the problems with data for typical households in the case of block pricing can be demonstrated by assuming two consumers, A and B, reacting to the hypothetical natural gas rate structure below:
Characterization of Acanthamoeba Isolates from Dust of a Public Hospital in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil

ABSTRACT. Occurrence of Acanthamoeba in the hospital environment may represent a health risk for patients, since these organisms can cause severe opportunistic illness, such as keratitis, and also can harbor pathogenic agents. We analyzed the dust from some environments of a public hospital in Curitiba, Parana State, Brazil. Two distinct populations of Acanthamoeba were isolated in five locations and morphologically classified as group I and group II according to Pussard and Pons. Isolates were identified as Acanthamoeba by PCR using primers to amplify a region of 18S rDNA, which showed variation in the product length among the isolates. A cloned culture of group II showed greater growth at 37 °C and in media with 0.1, 0.5, and 1.0 M mannitol, which are the physiological characteristics of pathogenic Acanthamoeba. Monitoring the presence of Acanthamoeba in hospital units, as well as evaluating the pathogenicity of the isolates, can be an approach to alert the health professionals to improve the disinfection procedures and minimize the risks of treating this problematic disease caused by this protozoan.
Improving Application Resilience to Memory Errors with Lightweight Compression

In next-generation extreme-scale systems, application performance will be limited by memory performance characteristics. The first exascale system is projected to contain many petabytes of memory. In addition to the sheer volume of the memory required, device trends, such as shrinking feature sizes and reduced supply voltages, have the potential to increase the frequency of memory errors. As a result, resilience to memory errors is a key challenge. In this paper, we evaluate the viability of using memory compression to repair detectable uncorrectable errors (DUEs) in memory. We develop a software library, evaluate its performance and demonstrate that it is able to significantly compress memory of HPC applications. Further, we show that exploiting compressed memory pages to correct memory errors can significantly improve application performance on next-generation systems.
Explaining (in)efficiency in higher education: a comparison of parametric and non-parametric analyses to rank universities

In recent years more and more numerous are the rankings published in the newspapers or technical reports available, covering many aspects of higher education, but in many cases with very conflicting results between them, due to the fact that universities’ performances depend on the set of variables considered and on the methods of analysis employed. The aim of this study is to rank higher education institutions (HEIs) in Italy, comparing parametric and non-parametric approaches: we firstly apply a so-called double bootstrap Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to generate unbiased coefficients (Simar and Wilson, 2007) and then a Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA), modelling the production set through an output distance function, applying a within transformation to data as developed by Wang and Ho (2010), to evaluate which determinants have an impact on universities’ efficiencies. The findings reveal that, on average and among the macro-areas of the country, the level of efficiency does not change significantly among estimation methods which, instead, generate different rankings. This may guide universities’ managers and policymakers as rankings have a strong impact on academic decision-making and behaviour, on the structure of the institutions and also on students and graduates recruiters. Variables describing institution, market place and environment have an important role in explaining (in)efficiency.
Midgut‐enriched receptor protein tyrosine phosphatase PTP52F is required for Drosophila development during larva–pupa transition

To date our understanding of Drosophila receptor protein tyrosine phosphatases (R‐PTPs) in the regulation of signal transduction is limited. Of the seven R‐PTPs identified in flies, six are involved in the axon guidance that occurs during embryogenesis. However, whether and how R‐PTPs may control key steps of Drosophila development is not clear. In this study we investigated the potential role of Drosophila R‐PTPs in developmental processes outside the neuronal system and beyond the embryogenesis stage. Through systematic data mining of available microarray databases, we found the mRNA level of PTP52F to be highly enriched in the midgut of flies at the larva–pupa transition. This finding was confirmed by gut tissue staining with a specific antibody. The unique spatiotemporal expression of PTP52F suggests that it is possibly involved in regulating metamorphosis during the transformation from larva to pupa. To test this hypothesis, we employed RNA interference to examine the defects of transgenic flies. We found that ablation of endogenous PTP52F led to high lethality characterized by the pharate adult phenotype, occurring due to post pupal eclosion failure. These results show that PTP52F plays an indispensable role during the larva–pupa transition. We also found that PTP52F could be reclassified as a member of the subtype R3 PTPs instead of as an unclassified R‐PTP without a human ortholog, as suggested previously. Together, these findings suggest that Drosophila R‐PTPs may control metamorphosis and other biological processes beyond our current knowledge.
Have IFRS Affected Earnings Management in the European Union?

There has recently been considerable discussion of those features of IFRS that are likely to help improve financial reporting in the European Union. However, certain issues may also have a negative impact on the quality of information. This paper focuses on the effect of IFRS on earnings management. Its main purpose is to examine whether the adoption of IFRS in the European Union has increased or decreased the scope for discretionary accounting practices by comparing discretionary accruals in the periods preceding and immediately after the regulatory change. Another objective is to determine which firms' features and country factors may explain the accounting discretion observed before and after IFRS. We consider a sample of non-financial firms listed on 11 EU stock markets. The results obtained show that earnings management has intensified since the adoption of IFRS in Europe, as discretionary accruals have increased in the period following implementation. The variables explaining accounting discretion are the same before and after IFRS (business size, leverage, investor protection and legal enforcement). These results suggest that variations in earnings management might be due to some room for manipulation under international standards when compared with local standards.
Optimizing the information yield of 3-D OCT in glaucoma.

PURPOSE To determine, first, which regions of 3-D optical coherence tomography (OCT) volumes can be segmented completely in the majority of subjects and, second, the relationship between analyzed area and thickness measurement test-retest variability. METHODS Three-dimensional OCT volumes (6 × 6 mm) centered around the fovea and optic nerve head (ONH) of 925 Rotterdam Study participants were analyzed; 44 participants were scanned twice. Volumes were segmented into 10 layers, and we determined the area where all layers could be identified in at least 95% (macula) or 90% (ONH) of subjects. Macular volumes were divided in 2 × 2, 4 × 4, 6 × 6, 8 × 8, or 68 blocks. We placed two circles around the ONH; the ONH had to fit into the smaller circle, and the larger circle had to fit into the segmentable part of the volume. The area between the circles was divided in 3 to 12 segments. We determined the test-retest variability (coefficient of repeatability) of the retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) and ganglion cell layer (RGCL) thickness measurements as a function of size of blocks/segments. RESULTS Eighty-two percent of the macular volume could be segmented in at least 95% of subjects; for the ONH, this was 65% in at least 90%. The radii of the circles were 1.03 and 1.84 mm. Depending on the analyzed area, median test-retest variability ranged from 8% to 15% for macular RNFL, 11% to 22% for macular RGCL, 5% to 11% for the two together, and 18% to 22% for ONH RNFL. CONCLUSIONS Test-retest variability hampers a detailed analysis of 3-D OCT data. Combined macular RNFL and RGCL thickness averaged over larger areas had the best test-retest variability.
Carbohydrate-Active Enzymes Involved in the Secondary Cell Wall Biogenesis in Hybrid Aspen1

Wood formation is a fundamental biological process with significant economic interest. While lignin biosynthesis is currently relatively well understood, the pathways leading to the synthesis of the key structural carbohydrates in wood fibers remain obscure. We have used a functional genomics approach to identify enzymes involved in carbohydrate biosynthesis and remodeling during xylem development in the hybrid aspen Populus tremula × tremuloides. Microarrays containing cDNA clones from different tissue-specific libraries were hybridized with probes obtained from narrow tissue sections prepared by cryosectioning of the developing xylem. Bioinformatic analyses using the sensitive tools developed for carbohydrate-active enzymes allowed the identification of 25 xylem-specific glycosyltransferases belonging to the Carbohydrate-Active EnZYme families GT2, GT8, GT14, GT31, GT43, GT47, and GT61 and nine glycosidases (or transglycosidases) belonging to the Carbohydrate-Active EnZYme families GH9, GH10, GH16, GH17, GH19, GH28, GH35, and GH51. While no genes encoding either polysaccharide lyases or carbohydrate esterases were found among the secondary wall-specific genes, one putative O-acetyltransferase was identified. These wood-specific enzyme genes constitute a valuable resource for future development of engineered fibers with improved performance in different applications.
Service quality in China’s hotel industry: a perspective from tourists and hotel managers

Assesses the perceptions of service quality in China’s hotel industry, from the perspective of both international tourists and hotel managers. A questionnaire was used to survey a sample of 90 hotel managers and 270 international tourists who visited China and stayed at hotels in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. A descriptive statistics analysis was used (paired t‐test and independent t‐test) to evaluate the service quality of China’s hotel industry from both the tourists’ and the managers’ perspectives, and to investigate the four gaps: between tourists’ expectations and their actual perceptions; between managers’ perceptions of tourists’ expectations and the actual expectations of tourists; between managers’ perceptions of a hotel’s service delivery and tourists’ actual perceptions of the service; and between managers’ perceptions of tourists’ expectations and managers’ perceptions of their hotel’s service delivery. The results showed that tourists’ perceptions of service quality provided in the hotel industry in China were consistently lower than their expectations and that managers overestimated the service delivery, compared to tourists’ perceptions of actual service quality, in the hotel industry in China. From the result of gap analysis, it might be concluded that Delivery Gap and Internal Evaluation Gap were the main reasons contributing to the service quality shortfalls in the hotel industry in China.
Shear Fluid‐induced Ca2+ Release and the Role of Mitochondria in Rat Cardiac Myocytes

Cardiac myocyte contraction occurs when Ca2+ influx through voltage‐gated L‐type Ca2+ channels causes Ca2+ release from ryanodine receptors of the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR). Although mitochondria occupy about 35% of the cell volume in rat cardiac myocytes, and are thought to be located <300 nm from the junctional SR, their role in the beat‐to‐beat regulation of cardiac Ca2+ signaling remains unclear. We have recently shown that rapid (∼20 ms) application of shear fluid forces (∼25 dynes/cm2) to rat cardiac myocytes triggers slowly (∼300 ms) developing Cai transients that were independent of activation of all transmembrane Ca2+ transporting pathways, but were suppressed by FCCP, CCCP, and Ru360, all of which are known to disrupt mitochondrial function. We have here used rapid 2‐D confocal microscopy to monitor fluctuations in mitochondrial Ca2+ levels ([Ca2+]m) and mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm) in rat cardiac myocytes loaded either with rhod‐2 AM or tetramethylrhodamine methyl ester (TMRM), respectively. Freshly isolated intact rat cardiac myocytes were plated on glass coverslips and incubated in 5 mM Ca2+ containing Tyrode's solution and 40 mM 2,3‐butanedione monoxime (BDM) to inhibit cell contraction. Alternatively, myocytes were permeabilized with 10 μM digitonin and perfused with an “intracellular” solution containing 10 μM free [Ca2+], 5 mM EGTA, and 15 mM BDM. Direct [Ca2+]m measurements showed transient mitochondrial Ca2+ accumulation after exposure to 10 mM caffeine, as revealed by a 66% increase in the rhod‐2 fluorescence intensity. Shear fluid forces, however, produced a 12% decrease in signal, suggesting that application of a mechanical force releases Ca2+ from the mitochondria. In addition, caffeine and CCCP or FCCP strongly reduced ΔΨm, while application of a pressurized solution produced a transient ΔΨm hyperpolarization in intact ventricular myocytes loaded with TMRM. The close proximity of mitochondria to ryanodine receptors and large [Ca2+] that develop in microdomains following calcium release are likely to play a critical role in regulating cytosolic Ca2+ signaling. We suggest that mitochondria may accumulate and release Ca2+ in response to mechanical forces generated by blood flow, independent of surface membrane–regulated CICR. The extent to which such a signaling mechanism contributes to stretch‐induced increase in myocardial force and pathogenesis of arrhythmias remains to be assessed.