Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influenza A Virus NS1 Protein Prevents Activation of NF-κB and Induction of Alpha/Beta Interferon

ABSTRACT The alpha/beta interferon (IFN-α/β) system represents one of the first lines of defense against virus infections. As a result, most viruses encode IFN antagonistic factors which enhance viral replication in their hosts. We have previously shown that a recombinant influenza A virus lacking the NS1 gene (delNS1) only replicates efficiently in IFN-α/β-deficient systems. Consistent with this observation, we found that infection of tissue culture cells with delNS1 virus, but not with wild-type influenza A virus, induced high levels of mRNA synthesis from IFN-α/β genes, including IFN-β. It is known that transactivation of the IFN-β promoter depends on NF-κB and several other transcription factors. Interestingly, cells infected with delNS1 virus showed high levels of NF-κB activation compared with those infected with wild-type virus. Expression of dominant-negative inhibitors of the NF-κB pathway during delNS1 virus infection prevented the transactivation of the IFN-β promoter, demonstrating a functional link between NF-κB activation and IFN-α/β synthesis in delNS1 virus-infected cells. Moreover, expression of the NS1 protein prevented virus- and/or double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-mediated activation of the NF-κB pathway and of IFN-β synthesis. This inhibitory property of the NS1 protein of influenza A virus was dependent on its ability to bind dsRNA, supporting a model in which binding of NS1 to dsRNA generated during influenza virus infection prevents the activation of the IFN system. NS1-mediated inhibition of the NF-κB pathway may thus play a key role in the pathogenesis of influenza A virus.
Segmentation and Time-of-Day Patterns in Foreign Exchange Markets

This paper sheds light on a puzzling pattern in spot foreign exchange markets: domestic currencies appreciate (depreciate) systematically during foreign (domestic) working hours. This phenomenon spans many years and several exchange rates, and overrides calendar effects. We argue that it is mainly due to liquidity and inventory patterns that emerge from the combination of two factors: domestic agents tend to be net buyers of foreign currency and to trade mostly in their country's working hours. The prevalence of domestic (foreign) traders demanding the counterpart currency during domestic (foreign) working hours implies sell-price (buy-price) pressure on the domestic currency during domestic (foreign) working hours.
Local Food Systems: Concepts, Impacts, and Issues

This comprehensive overview of local food systems explores alternative definitions of local food, estimates market size and reach, describes the characteristics of local consumers and producers, and examines early indications of the economic and health impacts of local food systems. There is no consensus on a definition of “local” or “local food systems” in terms of the geographic distance between production and consumption. But defining “local” based on marketing arrangements, such as farmers selling directly to consumers at regional farmers’ markets or to schools, is well recognized. Statistics suggest that local food markets account for a small, but growing, share of U.S. agricultural production. For smaller farms, direct marketing to consumers accounts for a higher percentage of their sales than for larger farms. Findings are mixed on the impact of local food systems on local economic development and better nutrition levels among consumers, and sparse literature is so far inconclusive about whether localization reduces energy use or greenhouse gas emissions.
Using astrology in market segmentation

For segmentation purposes, demographic variables are cheap and easy to measure, while psychographic variables are harder to measure, but can provide a more accurate insight into consumer psychology. The use of astrology, potentially, allows us to combine the measurement of demographics, with the psychological insights of psychographics. Suggests that a prima facie case exists for the suitability of astrology as a segmentation variable since it creates segments which are measurable, substantial, accessible, exhaustive, relatively stable over time, likely to respond differently towards different marketing programmes and have clear boundaries. Although it would be unrealistic to claim that astrology can be universally applied to all markets in all industries, it may have some use when applied to certain populations or sub‐groups within certain lifestyle and personality‐related markets.
Reconciling fiscal consolidation with growth and equity

Despite sustained efforts made in recent years to rein in budget deficits, a majority of OECD countries still face substantial public finance consolidation needs. While essential to avoid the disruption and large costs ultimately associated with unsustainable public finances, fiscal consolidation complicates the task of achieving other policy goals. In most cases, it weighs on demand in the short term. And, if too little attention is paid to the mix of instruments used to achieve consolidation, it can undermine long-term growth, exacerbate income inequality and slow the process of global rebalancing. It is therefore important for governments to adopt consolidation strategies that minimise these adverse side-effects. The analysis proposes consolidation strategies that take into account other policy goals as well as country-specific circumstances and preferences. To do so, increases in particular taxes and cuts in specific spending areas are assessed for their effects on short- and long-term growth, income distribution and external accounts. The results of detailed illustrative simulations indicate that a significant number of OECD countries may have to raise harmful taxes or cut valuable spending areas to deliver sufficient consolidation, underscoring the need for structural reforms to counteract these side-effects. The results are robust to an extensive range of sensitivity checks.
Variations of Value Creation: Automobile Manufacturing in Thailand

The increasing integration of the Thai automobile industry into the global economy throughout the last three decades has been influenced by a number of factors. Although the general increase in demand has created the basic precondition for global automobile firms to serve this particular market, the way in which these automobile firms operate in the Thai economy is subject to regulatory frameworks operating at different geographical scales. Indeed, the exercise of institutional power at the national and macroregional scale, regulating automobile production and trade within Thailand and the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) has a significant impact on the way in which firms embed themselves into, and how value is created within, the Thai economy. However, the network configurations of the lead firms operating in Thailand vary significantly. The way and extent to which lead firms create and enhance value within this national economy are strongly dependent on the manufactured product.
Worker Participation and Trade Unionism: Case Studies of Workplace Democracy in South Africa

In the context of democratization and deracialization, Southa Africa's workplaces are undergoing a profound transition. This article investigates worker participation in three different South African case studies and argues that in the context of ongoing conflict and cooperation, participation should be combined with oppositional strategies if labour is going to have any meaningful say in the running of the workplace.
Privacy in Cloud System

Cloud computing technology is used as inexpensive systems to gather and utilize computational capability. This technology improves applications services by arranging machines and distributed resources in a single huge computational entity. Clouds consist of data centers which are owned by the same institute. The homogeneity within each data centre in the infrastructure is the main feature for the cloud computing but any conflict between heterogeneous data centers and/or different administration domains can become a serious issue for cloud interoperability and privacy. This paper suggests a new framework to solve the interoperability problem.
Financial Development and Economic Growth: Global and African Evidence

This paper aims to survey existing research on financial development and economic growth, highlighting the theoretical models and evidence from recent empirical work. Emphasis is placed on the flow-of-funds story (finance matters for economic growth). It is noted that recent evidence is weighted in favour of the argument that financial development, in terms of financial institutions and markets and their role in reducing information asymmetry and pricing risk, is crucial for economic growth. Also, new evidence offers important insights into the mechanisms by which finance induces economic growth, including emerging work on corporate finance as well as work that teases out an implication for inter-generational income distribution and poverty reduction (the finance-and-growth opportunity argument). However, there are some cautionary tales, as well, not least because of financial crises and contagion effects and the threat to sustainable growth and income convergence. Evidence specific to African economies is highlighted and implications for policy are drawn. The paper concludes by proposing the way forward for further research. Copyright 2012 , Oxford University Press.
Enhancing Efficiency of Hybrid Transactional Memory Via Dynamic Data Partitioning Schemes

Transactional Memory (TM) is an emerging paradigm that promises to significantly ease the development of parallel programs. Hybrid TM (HyTM) is probably the most promising implementation of the TM abstraction, which seeks to combine the high efficiency of hardware implementations (HTM) with the robustness and flexibility of software-based ones (STM). Unfortunately, though, existing Hybrid TM systems are known to suffer from high overheads to guarantee correct synchronization between concurrent transactions executing in hardware and software. This article introduces DMP-TM (Dynamic Memory Partitioning-TM), a novel HyTM algorithm that exploits, to the best of our knowledge for the first time in the literature, the idea of leveraging operating system-level memory protection mechanisms to detect conflicts between HTM and STM transactions. This innovative design allows for employing highly scalable STM implementations, while avoiding instrumentation on the HTM path. This allows DMP-TM to achieve up to ~ 20× speedups compared to state of the art Hybrid TM solutions in uncontended workloads. Further, thanks to the use of simple and lightweight self-tuning mechanisms, DMP-TM achieves robust performance even in unfavourable workload that exhibits high contention between the STM and HTM path.
An efficient VLSI implementation of H.264/AVC intra-frame transcoder

The number of different display terminals increased steadily, from HD TV to mobile phone TV and transcoding has become an indispensable operation in video processing. In the most cases, transcoding has to be done in real time but H.264/AVC intra-frame decoding and encoding contain a set of computation-intensive coding tools forming a loop in which the data are strongly dependant. Parallelization of each function isn't though effortless. In this paper, we present an optimized transcoding chain for AVC intra-frame stream. The transcoding chain is characterized by several operators based on loop iterations and working on 4×4 luma or 2×2 chroma blocs. This generates heavy latency. Ours approaches uses loop unrolling and data parallelization. A tradeoff is done between critical path and number of cycles in order to improve global latency. The architecture described in this paper includes a powerful CAVLC coder and decoder, an optimized transform-quantization and a frequency selection function for, respectively, requantization and quick decimation of the high frequency values in a quantified coefficient block. This whole system performs an efficient transcoding operation. Our design, thanks to a high parallelization, can decode then recode a video stream in a 1080p format at 30 frames per second (fps) in real time at the frequency of 47Mhz. This design has been implemented in a Virtex 5 FPGA. Each block is fully described giving the surface occupied and the timing diagram.
[Validation of microMESAM as screening device for sleep disordered breathing].

INTRODUCTION Polysomnography (PSG) is considered the gold standard in the diagnosis of sleep disordered breathing (SDB). Because of costs and labor-intensity it is, however, performed last in graded diagnostic protocols that often involve respiratory pressure measurements via nasal canula as an alternative sensitive method for SDB detection. MicroMESAM, a newly developed screening device based on this method, allows automated analysis of apnoeas, hypopnoeas and snoring. AIM AND METHODS To validate the device, we first compared signal quality of MicroMESAM flow-time curves with those generated by a pneumotachograph. Then, in 50 patients suspected of having obstructive sleep apnoea, we compared MicroMESAM-generated automated analysis with manually scored results of simultaneously collected PSG data. RESULTS MicroMESAM-generated flow-time curves correspond with pneumotachograph-generated curves in 95% of respiratory events, resulting in less 4 +/- 2% difference in respective area under the curves. MicroMESAM and PSG generated numbers of apnoeas (r = 0.99) and hypopnoea (r = 0.81), as well as AHI (r = 0.98) correlated highly, displaying mean differences in AHI of 3.8, and in 1.96 sigma interval of + 11.1 to - 3.5/h. Sensitivities and specificities for SDB were 97.3%, respective 46% at SDB-defining AHI of 5, and 100%, respective 87.5%, at SDB-defining AHI of 10. SUMMARY MicroMESAM-generated flow-time curves correspond well with pneumotachograph generated curves, producing automated AHIs that are highly sensitive in detecting SDB. MicroMESAM, therefore, is suitable as a screening device for SDB.
Traumas and other adverse life events in adolescents with alcohol abuse and dependence.

OBJECTIVE Clinical observation suggests that adolescents with alcohol use disorders often have complex histories that include childhood maltreatment and other traumas. The aim of this study was to determine the relationships among adolescent alcohol use disorders and a broad range of traumas and adverse life events. METHOD The subjects were 132 adolescents with alcohol dependence, 51 adolescents with alcohol abuse, and 73 adolescents recruited from the community as a control group. Trauma history was assessed by a semistructured interview and other adverse life events by questionnaire. RESULTS Traumatic events reflecting interpersonal violence had occurred in many of the adolescents with alcohol dependence and abuse and few of the control adolescents. Adolescents with alcohol abuse or dependence, compared with control subjects, were 6 to 12 times more likely to have a physical abuse history and 18 to 21 times more likely to have a sexual abuse history. Sexual abuse was more common in females, and victimization by other violent acts was more common in males. Many other adverse life events were also significantly more common in the alcohol use disorder groups than in the control group, including having a close friend die, arguments within the family, and legal difficulties. CONCLUSIONS These results demonstrate that trauma and other adverse life events are strongly associated with alcohol use disorders in adolescents. Clinical screening of adolescents with alcohol use disorders for a range of traumatic events is recommended.
Processing Trade, Exchange Rates and China's Bilateral Trade Balances

This paper analyzes the role of processing trade in China's bilateral trade balances and the impact of the yuan's appreciation on China's processing trade. The analysis is based on panel data covering bilateral processing trade between China and its partners from 1993 to 2008. The empirical results show that: (1) processing trade accounted for 100% of China's annual trade surplus during the period; (2) China's processing trade showed a significant regional bias—77% of processing imports originated from East Asia while only 29% of processing exports was destined to the region in 2008; and (3) a real appreciation of the yuan would negatively affect both processing imports and exports—specifically, a 10% real appreciation of the yuan would reduce not only China's processing exports by 9.1% but also its processing imports by 5.0%. Based on these empirical findings we conclude that the combined effect of the yuan's appreciation on the balance of processing trade and thus China's overall trade balance will be limited.
Effects of calcium and magnesium on transmitter release at Ia synapses of rat spinal motoneurones in vitro.

The lumbar spinal cord excised from neonatal rats was superfused with an oxygenated saline, and monosynaptic excitatory post‐synaptic potentials (e.p.s.p.s) were recorded from the lumbar motoneurones following stimulation of muscle nerves of the hind leg. The amplitude of monosynaptic e.p.s.p.s increased with an increase in the external Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]o). In [Ca2+]o of 0.5‐2 mM, the relation between the e.p.s.p. amplitude and [Ca2+]o was linear with a slope of 1.6 on double logarithmic co‐ordinates. An increase in [Mg2+]o in a range of 1‐5 mM reduced the e.p.s.p. amplitude without affecting the slope of the relation between log e.p.s.p. amplitude and log [Ca2+]o, suggesting competitive interaction between Ca2+ and Mg2+. When [Ca2+]o was increased to 4‐12 mM, the latency of monosynaptic e.p.s.p.s was prolonged, and the antidromic action potential failed to invade the cell body or initial segment of motoneurones. Under these conditions, the monosynaptic e.p.s.p.s were still present. It is concluded that at near‐normal levels of [Ca2+]o the effects of Ca2+ and Mg2+ on the e.p.s.p. amplitude are accounted for entirely by their competitive interaction for the probability of transmitter release without altering the mode of impulse propagation at central terminals of the Group Ia sensory fibres. It is suggested that impulses of Ia sensory fibres normally invade their terminals without intermittent blocks at their terminal branch points.
Cellular architecture enhancement for supporting the european licensed shared access concept

As the demand for mobile traffic continues to grow rapidly, finding exclusive bands for mobile network operators in a harmonized manner becomes increasingly challenging. New European spectrum regulatory development aims at allowing future cellular networks to access shared spectrum bands under the licensed shared access regime as a complementary approach to current exclusive licensed and license-exempt bands. The introduction of additional spectrum by new spectrum access methods seems a necessary evolution path for cellular mobile communication networks to respond to the growing traffic in the next decade. The inclusion of the shared bands will require modifications to the existing network management as their availability and access conditions may vary locally and temporarily according to the agreed licensing conditions. Self-organizing network features will undoubtedly become an important enabler to handle the increased complexity brought by licensed shared access methods. In this article, self-organizing networking features to support the licensed shared bands are introduced. In particular, automated load balancing decisions by traffic steering are examined in detail with the purpose of matching the mobile network operators' available radio access technologies, cells, and spectrum resources to the fluctuating traffic demand.
The Persistent Effects of Peru's Mining Mita

This study utilizes regression discontinuity to examine the long-run impacts of the mita, an extensive forced mining labor system in effect in Peru and Bolivia between 1573 and 1812. Results indicate that a mita effect lowers household consumption by around 25% and increases the prevalence of stunted growth in children by around six percentage points in subjected districts today. Using data from the Spanish Empire and Peruvian Republic to trace channels of institutional persistence, I show that the mita's influence has persisted through its impacts on land tenure and public goods provision. Mita districts historically had fewer large landowners and lower educational attainment. Today, they are less integrated into road networks, and their residents are substantially more likely to be subsistence farmers.
Particulars of US Information Technology and productivity: lessons for Europe

There is ample evidence that investment in Information Technology (IT) boosted labour markets productivity in the USA. In fact, conspicuous flows of investment in this sector enabled the US firms to record high rates of productivity growth and to boost up the country's economic growth to very high rates. The US experience that took place during the second part of the 1990s was not echoed in Europe owing to the fact that European firms have not adopted forward-looking investment decisions on this sector. Besides divergence in investment decisions, it is possible to observe that divergence in productive growth outcomes between the US and European firms have been as a result of different managerial organisations.
An Analysis of R & D Activities in North East England Manufacturing Firms: The Results of a Sample Survey

DIXON A. J. and SEDDIGHI H. R. (1996) An analysis of R & D activities in North East England manufacturing firms: the results of a sample survey, Reg. Studies 30, 287–294. A survey of over 400 firms was carried out to investigate the effect of a number of variables upon R & D activities within North East manufacturing firms. Firms were asked to provide information regarding their characteristics and R & D activities. A descriptive analysis is supplemented by statistical tests of the variables concerned. The results concerning firm size, export intensity and industrial sector were consistent with previous studies. Ownership and date of establishment were found to have no relationship with R & D activities. A multivariate logit probability model is then utilized to generate the predicted probability of a firm undertaking R & D. DIXON A. J. et SEDDIGHI H. R. (1996) Une analyse des activites de R et D des entreprises industrielles situees dans le nord-est de l'Angleterre: les resultats d'une enquete par sondag.
Public-Private Partnerships: An International Performance Review

Public–private partnerships are enjoying a global resurgence in popularity, but there is still much confusion around notions of partnership, what can be learned from our history with partnerships, and what is new about the partnership forms that are in vogue today. Looking at one particular family of public–private partnerships, the long-term infrastructure contract, this article argues that evaluations thus far point to contradictory results regarding their effectiveness. Despite their continuing popularity with governments, greater care is needed to strengthen future evaluations and conduct such assessments away from the policy cheerleaders.