Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A morphometric analysis of rat ventral prostate in organ culture

A stereologic, morphometric method was used for determining the quantitative and qualitative changes in the rat ventral prostate during organ culture. The volume density of epithelium (VVEP), lumina (VVLU), and interstitium (VVIT) as well as the proportion of epithelium of the tissue, (VVEP) (VVEP+VVIT), the length density of tubular structures (Lv), mean diameter of the lumina (DLU), height of the epitheluium (h), and mean width of the interacinar tissue (λAP) were evaluated. In the perfusion‐fixed prostate these parameters gave the closest approximation for the in vivo situation: VVEP was 0.19 mm3/mm3; h 19.5 μm; VVEP/(VVEP+VVIT) 0.63 mm3 VVLU 0.70 mm3/mm3; DLU 230 μm; VVIT 0.11 mm3/mm3; λap 84.1 μm; and Lv 17.5 mm/mm3. Dissection of the prostate for culture caused leakage of prostatic secretions and a consequent diminution of VVLU (0.41 mm3/mm3) and DLU (151 μm), as well as folding of the epithelium and distortion of the interacinar tissue (VVIT 0.25 mm3/mm3). During 10 days culture in a defined medium, the prostate under‐went involutive changes including loss of total weight, a decrease of VVEP, and an increase of VVIT. During the first day a stimulatory effect on the epithelium occured, which might have been caused by a loss of androgenic control or by substances in leaking secretions. Testosterone postponed many of these changes and maintained the secretory function better. Thus, on day 4 the morphology of the prostate resembled better the situation in vivo than at the beginning of involutionary culture. However, later during culture changes, similar to those found without testosterone but weaker, were noted.
Testosterone abrogates TLR4 activation in prostate smooth muscle cells contributing to the preservation of a differentiated phenotype

Prostate smooth muscle cells (pSMCs) are capable of responding to inflammatory stimuli by secreting proinflammatory products, which causes pSMCs to undergo dedifferentiation. Although it has been proposed that androgens decrease proinflammatory molecules in many cells and under various conditions, the role of testosterone in the prostate inflammatory microenvironment is still unclear. Therefore, our aim was to evaluate if testosterone was able to modulate the pSMCs response to bacterial LPS by stimulating primary pSMC cultures, containing testosterone or vehicle, with LPS (1 or 10 µg/ml) for 24–48 h. The LPS challenge induced pSMCs dedifferentiation as evidenced by a decrease of calponin and alpha smooth muscle actin along with an increase of vimentin in a dose‐dependent manner, whereas testosterone abrogated these alterations. Additionally, an ultrastructural analysis showed that pSMCs acquired a secretory profile after LPS and developed proteinopoietic organelles, while pSMCs preincubated with testosterone maintained a more differentiated phenotype. Testosterone downregulated the expression of surface TLR4 in control cells and inhibited any increase after LPS treatment. Moreover, testosterone prevented IκB‐α degradation and the LPS‐induced NF‐κB nuclear translocation. Testosterone also decreased TNF‐α and IL6 production by pSMCs after LPS as quantified by ELISA. Finally, we observed that testosterone inhibited the induction of pSMCs proliferation incited by LPS. Taken together, these results indicate that testosterone reduced the proinflammatory pSMCs response to LPS, with these cells being less reactive in the presence of androgens. In this context, testosterone might have a homeostatic role by contributing to preserve a contractile phenotype on pSMCs under inflammatory conditions. J. Cell. Physiol. 228: 1551–1560, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Life estimation of high power LED using distribution based reliability analysis

Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) are highly preferred light sources due to their high luminous efficacy, energy efficiency, physical robustness and life. Technological developments in the recent years have almost replaced conventional light sources with light emitting diodes in many applications such as hospital lighting, street lighting, theater lighting and other general illumination purpose. The reliability and performance of the LEDs are affected by the junction temperature, as it reduces the lumen output over time. This paper uses the lumen maintenance data provided by a high power LED to analyze the degradation path and determination of life time using pseudo failure time and random effect parameter. With the help of statistical models (Normal, Lognormal and Weibull) the reliability and lifetime of the LED based on lumen degradation are predicted. And using a method called Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), the best model is chosen. Validation of the model is carried out using regression analysis. Reliability modeling using these methods result in high correlative coefficient and less error.
Tyrosine Phosphorylation of PNS Myelin P0 Occurs in the Cytoplasmic Domain and Is Maximal During Early Development

Abstract P0, the major protein of PNS myelin, is considered to play a critical role in the compaction and stabilization of myelin lamellae. The protein undergoes extensive posttranslational modifications, including phosphorylation at multiple serine moieties in the cytoplasmic region. Recently, we demonstrated that P0 is phosphorylated on one or more tyrosine residues in rat nerve homogenates after incubation. In this study, we show that P0 phosphorylated on tyrosine is also present in the intact animal. The proportion of P0 molecules phosphorylated on tyrosine is highest during the first postnatal week, a period that coincides with the most rapid period of myelin deposition in the PNS. A peptide that constitutes the cytoplasmic domain was isolated from purified P0 and shown by immunochemical and chemical means to be phosphorylated on the tyrosine corresponding to Y191 in the intact protein. No evidence was obtained supporting the possibility that P0 is phosphorylated on other tyrosine residues. The sequence of amino acids surrounding Y191 resemble known substrate phosphorylation sites for some nonreceptor cytoplasmic tyrosine kinases, as well as tyrosine‐based recognition signals associated with clathrin vesicle‐mediated cndocytosis.
[Differential protein expressions in breast cancer between drug sensitive tissues and drug resistant tissues].

OBJECTIVE To investigate the differential expression of the sensitive and resistant relative proteins in human breast cancer tissue. METHODS A drug sensitive group and a drug resistant group for chemotherapy in patients with breast cancer were selected through neoadjuvant. The differential protein expression in 2 groups was detected by proteomics techniques, and parts of differential proteins were identified by Western blot. RESULTS There were 13 differential proteins in the 2 groups, in which the expression of 3 proteins was up-regulated and 10 down-regulated. Seven proteins were identified by Western blot. The expression of keratin type I cytoskeletal 19 (KIC19), thymidine phosphorylase (TYPH) was upregulated, and the expression of heat shock protein 27 (HSP27), keratin type I cytoskeletal 9 (KIC9), collagen alpha-2(VI) (CO6A2), vimentin (VIME), and actin cytoplasmic 1 (ACTB) was down-regulated in the drug resistant group. There was significant difference between the 2 groups (P<0.01). CONCLUSION The expression of KIC19 and TYPH may be correlated with drug resistance in patients with breast cancer, and HSP27, KIC9, CO6A2, VIME, and ACTB may be correlated with drug sensitivity.
What is an Asset Price Bubble? An Operational Definition

This paper reviews and analyses the current definitions of bubbles in asset prices. It makes the case that one cannot identify a bubble immediately, but one has to wait a sufficient amount of time to determine whether the previous prices can be justified by subsequent cash flows. The paper proposes an operational definition of a bubble as any time the realised asset return over given future period is more than two standard deviations from its expected return. Using this framework, the paper shows how the great crash of 1929 and 1987—both periods generally characterised as bubbles—prove not to be bubbles but the low point in stock prices in 1932 is a ‘negative bubble. ’ The paper then extends this analysis to the internet stocks and concludes that it is virtually certain that it is a bubble.
A Macromarketing Perspective on Food Safety Regulation

This article discusses the implementation and diffusion of mandatory and voluntary food safety regulations from a marketing systems perspective, and specifically applies this framework to an analysis of the antecedents and implications of the Danish 2003 ban on trans-fatty acids (TFAs). The analysis is based on reviews of published material and on interviews with food marketers, nutrition experts, and policy makers. It is established that the ban was implemented due to scientific proof of health risks associated with the intake of TFAs but also as a result of aligned interests and efforts of the major stakeholders in the Danish food marketing system. Adding to the literature on diffusion of regulatory initiatives, the analysis shows that the Danish ban on trans-fats had—and still has—an important impact on trans-fat regulation in other European and overseas countries. In the final section, insights from the analysis are used as a starting point for a discussion of how public authorities, food marketers, and macromarketing researchers can apply the marketing systems perspective when designing, managing, and studying future cases of food safety regulation.
Corporate Real Estate Research within the Academy

This study discusses the uniqueness and importance of corporate real estate asset management and distinguishes it from third party real estate investment management. A decline in corporate real estate research within the academy from 1995 through 1998 is documented and contrasted with the increasing research activity and interest in this area since 1995 by both consultants and trade associations. Reasons to account for this mismatch are canvassed from within the academy and offered herein. Finally, important questions about the future direction of corporate real estate research are posed.
Globalization from Below: AIDWA, Foreign Funding, and Gendering Anti-Violence Campaigns

Social movements and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) fight on the frontlines of neoliberal development policies, for their constituencies and for their own survival. These groups’ proximity to neoliberalism, through their funding sources and decision-making structures, has come under increasing scrutiny marked by the critical description of their “NGOization. ” This globalization from below into the fabric of grassroots resistance marks an important site of departure for one national women’s organization, the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA). Member-sustained and independent from outside donor funding, but deeply marked by World Bank/International Monetary Fund development demands, AIDWA sheds light on those organizational forms that refuse to compromise their goals even as they recognize changing political conditions. This paper looks at their analysis and politics to combat violence against women, an approach that never wholly leaves its local battles against domestic violence even as it directly implicates neoliberal capitalism in women’s intimate relationships with violence.
Aging population: problems and policy options in the US and Germany

Aging population Axel Borsch-Supan The expected change in the age structure of the industrialized countries will lead to a dramatically higher proportion of older people. In Germany, for example, 100 employed persons now support about 40 elderly. By 2030, this ratio will rise to 85 elderly people per 100 employed persons. This process will deeply affect labour, financial and housing markets. It will strain the social security systems, change the accumulation of aggregate wealth and skew its intergenerational distribution, while imposing a growing burden on family support by the young generation when the elderly are becoming frail and unable to live independently. This paper investigates the mechanisms at work in labour, financial and housing markets, drawing systematically on comparisons between German and US institutions to determine the role of taxes, subsidies and regulations. The evidence demonstrates that economic policies have powerful effects; some of them are also currently distortionary and interact with existing market imperfections, so that a serious consideration of policy options which may moderate the implications of population aging is called for.
Self‐Regulation Versus Command and Control? Beyond False Dichotomies

The search for regulatory alternatives to command and control has led many commentators to promote, or at least contemplate, the use of self-regulation to improve the environmental performance of industry. However, much of the current debate has been characterized by a choice between two mutually exclusive policy options: “strict” command and control on one hand, and “pure” self-regulation on the other. In fact, there is a much richer range of policy options, with most falling somewhere between theoretically polar extremes. This article demonstrates that there are a number of “regulatory variables” which policymakers can use to “fine-tune” regulatory options to suit the specific circumstances of particular environmental issues. In the vast majority of circumstances, a combination of self-regulation and command and control will provide the ideal regulatory outcome.
CDS pricing with long memory via fractional Levy processes

In this paper, we consider spread rates of credit default swaps (CDSs) in a long memory fractional Levy setting, i.e. where interest and hazard rates are driven by processes whose autocovariance functions decrease very slowly over time. Empirically, this property can be found in many variables like interest and hazard rates, but the usually applied Markovian models are unable to reflect this. Using earlier results on conditional distributions of fractional Levy processes, we carry out an extensive analysis of parameter sensitivities useful for researchers and practitioners alike and derive an analytical pricing formula for CDS contracts. A first empirical application is provided as well.
Compressive Sensing Based Layover Separation in Airborne Single-Pass Multi-Baseline InSAR Data

In this letter, compressive sensing based methods for layover separation in airborne single-pass multi-baseline InSAR data are investigated. The standard compressive sensing (CS) is compared with recently proposed distributed CS (DCS) and a new “multilooking” approach to CS (MCS). Experiments on simulated data show that, while CS is not satisfyingly applicable to single-pass data stacks with just few acquisitions, the neighborhood-based approaches, DCS and MCS, yield a promising perspective.
The Effect of Price Limits on Intraday Volatility and Information Asymmetry

We investigate the effect of price limits on intra-day volatility and information asymmetry using transactions data from the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Proponents of price limits argue that they provide an opportunity for investors to reevaluate market information and make more rational trading decisions. We identify three different limit hits - closing, single, and consecutive - and hypothesize that only the consecutive limit hits are likely to provide such an opportunity, namely, to counter investor overreaction (volatility hypothesis) and to enhance information revelation (information asymmetry hypothesis). Our empirical evidence supports the volatility hypothesis. Our findings generate important policy implications for stock markets that have price limits.
Government action and tourism sector development in the Third World: A planning approach

In many Third World countries tourism is an economic activity the importance of which can hardly be ignored 1). Thus it is obvious that the governments of those countries, besides paying attention to the usual sectors such as agriculture, industry, mining, transport and communication, public health and hygiene and education, should also engage in sectoral programs with regard to tourism. Since “a sector comprises, for the most part, the producing or operating units in the economy that share a common function or output” 2), tourism lays claim to a sectoral approach. In tourism there clearly exists a common function of activities, comprising both Services and production of goods ‐Pertot speaks of a mixed commodity‐service exchange 3) — for the sake of the tourist. The separate activities together constitute the compound tourist product.
Caregivers of Alzheimer's patients and factors influencing institutionalization of loved ones: some considerations on existing literature.

BACKGROUND Informal caring or caregiving is very common in our postindustrial society. Caregiving burden grows with the worsening of cognitive impairment of the patient and is one of the factors influencing institutionalization. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a type of dementia that is chronic and deteriorative. The symptoms of this neuropsychiatric disorder generally begin to manifest after the age of sixty and currently 8.9 million family caregivers provide assistance to someone with AD or a related dementia. As the patient's condition worsens, it increases the burden on the caregivers, due to the physical, psychological, and emotional stresses that result from caring for the patient. METHODS A search of the literature was conducted on electronic database: PubMed, Google Scholar, Science direct, CINAHL in a exploratory way. Inclusion criteria were: articles in English and Italian published between 1999-2011 which mentioned Alzheimer's caregivers, burden, stressors, and institutionalization. The exclusion criterion was failure to mention the word "caregivers". About 100 titles were found and 30 articles abstracts with key words in the title were reviewed. Of the 30 articles selected for further review based on the relevance to the study purpose, 17 articles were finally selected for inclusion in this literature review. RESULTS Results display that caregiver burden is influenced by patient behavioral and cognitive status, hours involved in care, stress, social isolation, gender, relationship to the patient, availability of support resources, and caregiver characteristics. Assessment tools available to assess and recognize risk factors and burden in caregivers are useful both in terms of caregivers health and decision on istitutionalization. CONCLUSION Literature suggests to provide information for health care providers to reduce burden and support caregiver health and well-being. Assessment tools available to assess and recognize risk factors and burden in caregivers should be used more often to contribute to reducing caregiver stress and the impact of institutionalization.
The USA-USSR collaborative cross-cultural comparison of autogenic training and thermal biofeedback in the treatment of mild hypertension.

We have conducted a cross-cultural (USA and USSR) comparison of thermal biofeedback (TBF) and autogenic training (AT) to a self-relaxation control condition in 59 unmedicated males with mild hypertension. Identical assessment and treatment protocols were carried out in both settings (Albany, New York, and Moscow). Treatments were delivered in small groups on an outpatient basis twice per week for 10 weeks. Results showed comparable, significant (p less than .05), short-term decreases (M = 8.5 mm Hg) in diastolic blood pressure (DBP) for both treatments at both sites. However, the Soviet patients, starting with significantly (p less than .01) higher systolic blood pressures (SBPs), showed significant decreases (M = 12.8 mm Hg) in SBP, whereas the American patients did not change appreciably (M = 4.6 mm Hg). During follow-up, the treated Soviet patients showed significantly (p less than .05) better maintenance of treatment effects, from 3 months to 1 year, than did the American patients. At 1 year, 75% of the treated Soviet patients had DBPs less than 90 mm Hg, whereas only 24% of the American patients had comparable DBPs.
THE IMPACT OF WEIGHT-BASED PENALTIES ON DRUG PURITY AND CONSUMPTION: A THEORETICAL ANALYSIS

This paper investigates the impact of an increase in law enforcement on the purity of illicit drugs and illicit drug consumption. The impact is explored under the assumption that dealer penalties increase in the weight of drugs sold (as stipulated by current U.S. drug sentencing guidelines) and under the assumption that penalties increase in the effective dose, equal to purity times weight, of drugs sold. The paper finds that an increase in either the certainty of dealer or user punishment, under the assumption of weight-based dealer penalties, may increase the purity and the quantity of drugs consumed. An increase in the certainty of either dealer or user punishment, under effective dose-based penalties, decreases drug purity and the quantity of drugs consumed.
2.4GHz high linearity down-conversion mixer

A 2.4GHz high linearity and low noise down-conversion mixer is designed in SMIC 0.18-μm RF CMOS technology, which will be used in applications such as IEEE 802.11b/g WLAN, Wi-Fi Systems, ISM Band Systems, etc. The proposed mixer adopted Source inductor degeneration and current-reuse bleeding technique. The simulation results show that under a single 1.8V supply voltage, the mixer achieves: −0.34dBm input 1dB compress point; 10.3dB noise figure; −0.78dB conversion gain with 8mW power dissipation. The layout size is 850×500μm2.
SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITES IN INDIA AND THE UNITED STATES: A CROSS-NATIONAL COMPARISON OF ONLINE PRIVACY AND COMMUNICATION

This study examined cross-national differences in the usage of social networking websites (SNWs) between university students in India and the United States. A total of 245 Indian university students and 241 American university students completed a survey about privacy attitudes and behaviors as well as communication patterns on SNWs. Many of the traditional propositions about cross-cultural values and related notions about trust and communication patterns did not explain differences in behavior between Indian and American students. In particular, Indian students, who are considered being from a collectivist society, and American students, who are considered being from an individualist society, exhibited many common communication patterns. When they did exhibit different communication patterns, Indian students reported communication behaviors considered significantly more individualist than the American students. This research suggests that additional cross-cultural research is needed about the usage of SNWs and other forms of computer-mediated communication.