Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stably maintained microdomain of localized unrestrained supercoiling at a Drosophila heat shock gene locus.

A psoralen crosslinking assay was utilized to detect localized, unrestrained DNA supercoiling (torsional tension) in vivo in Drosophila chromosomal regions subject to differential transcriptional activity. By comparing rates of crosslinking in intact cells with those in cells where potential tension in chromosomal domains was relaxed by DNA strand nicking, the contribution to psoralen accessibility caused by altered DNA‐protein interactions (e.g. nucleosomal perturbations) was distinguished from that due to the presence of unrestrained supercoiling in a region of interest. The heat shock protein 70 (hsp70) genes were wound with a significant level of superhelical tension that remained virtually unaltered whether or not the genes were transcriptionally activated by thermal elevation. Constitutively expressed 18S ribosomal RNA genes also exhibited unrestrained superhelical tension at a level comparable with that across hsp70. In contrast, flanking regions downstream of each of the divergent hsp70 genes at locus 87A7 exhibited substantially less tension. Thus the results point to the existence of stable, torsionally stressed topological domains within eukaryotic chromosomal DNA, suggesting that the relaxing action of topoisomerases is not ubiquitous throughout the nucleus but, in fact, is likely to be tightly regulated.
Universal Influenza Vaccines - A Short Review

Since the development of the first vaccine against influenza virus in 1940s, considerable progress has been made in preventing this devastating disease. Despite of the encouraging advances, influenza vaccine research and development still remain challenging mainly due to the hurdle of antigenic drift and shift of viral immunogens. The current seasonal influenza vaccines need to be reformulated annually and provide only limited protection in the case of mismatch. The reoccurrence of seasonal epidemics and occasional outbreak of pandemics have urged the development of novel influenza vaccines capable of eliciting broad cross-protective immune responses. In this scenario, antigens composed of conserved regions shared among various influenza subtypes have raised great hopes for such vaccines. Delicate antigen design and integrated molecular adjuvants in combination with improved delivery and controlled release strategies present the promising directions towards universal influenza vaccine development. The present review summarizes the recent progress in such endeavors. Influenza matrix protein 2 and stalk domain of the hemagglutinin draw general interests for improved antigen design. Additionally, epitopes that are recognized by cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) become attractive targets for antigen design. On the other hand, multiple delivery platforms including virus-like particles, microneedles and nanoclusters could be employed to facilitate the optimization of an affordable universal influenza vaccine.
Measurement of service quality in banks: a comparative study between public and private banks in India

Service quality is believed to be one of the main determinants of customer satisfaction and purchase intention. However, there are very few studies that have been conducted to identify the important dimensions of service quality specific to banking sector. The present study is aimed to assess and compare the perceived level of bank service quality and to investigate the dimensions of quality banking service in private and public sector bank using an instrument banking service quality scale (BSQ) specifically designed for measuring service quality in banks. The study is based on the responses collected from 240 customers banking with private and public sector retail banks in India. The results show that the customers of public sector and private sector banks differ in terms of their service quality perceptions. Private banks are perceived to be superior on the service quality dimensions: effectiveness, access and tangibles whereas, the public sector banks score better on the dimensions of price and reliability. The study concludes that the BSQ instrument appears to be a valid instrument to measure the service quality in Indian retail banks.
Racial differences in self-reports of sleep duration in a population-based study.

STUDY OBJECTIVES Racial and ethnic differences in sleep duration are not well understood. Research shows that short (< or =6 hours) and long (> or =9 hours) sleepers have higher mortality risks than mid-range sleepers. We investigated whether sleep duration varies by racial and ethnic characteristics and if some of these associations may be explained by residential context. DESIGN Cross-sectional National Health Interview Survey. SETTING Non-institutionalized adults living in the United States in 1990. PARTICIPANTS 32,749 people aged 18 years or older. MEASUREMENT AND RESULTS We estimate a multinomial logistic regression that predicts short, mid-range, and long sleep duration; including covariates for race/ethnicity, among other demographic, health, and neighborhood characteristics. Black respondents had an increased risk of being short and long sleepers (OR=1.41, 95% CI=1.27-1.57 and OR=1.62, 95% CI=1.40-1.88, respectively) relative to white respondents. Hispanics (excluding Mexican Americans) and non-Hispanic "Others" were also associated with increased risk of short sleeping (OR=1.26, 95% CI= 1.07-1.49 and OR=1.35, 95% CI= 1.11-1.64, respectively). Living in an inner city was associated with increased risk of short sleeping and reduced risk of long sleeping, compared to non-urban areas. Some of the higher risk of short sleeping among blacks can be explained by higher prevalence of blacks living in the inner city. CONCLUSIONS Blacks and other racial minorities are more likely to have sleep durations that are associated with increased mortality. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that unhealthy sleep patterns among minorities may contribute to health differentials.
A novel compact dual-band MIMO antenna

This letter presents a dual-band multiple input multiple output (MIMO) metamaterial-based antenna. The MIMO antenna system consists of two dual-band antenna elements and two split loop resonators. The antenna operates at 2.45 GHz and 5.25 GHz, suitable for WLAN application. The loop resonators placed in the space between the antenna elements act as metamaterial samples which could control the electromagnetic wave propagation effectively. The designed MIMO antenna system has better than -25dB coupling isolation in resonant frequencies between the two antenna elements without affecting the simplicity and planarity of the MIMO antenna. Moreover the proposed MIMO antenna shows good radiation pattern and achieves gain of 5-6 dBi in the related bands.
The mechanism of fission yeast mating-type interconversion: evidence for two types of epigenetically inherited chromosomal imprinted events.

Mating types of the fission yeast S. pombe interchange such that only one cell among four granddaughters of a cell ever switches, and the sister of the newly switched cell switches efficiently in consecutive cell divisions, thereby producing chains of recurrent switching. The developmental program is known to be mediated through specific parental chromosomal DNA-strand inheritance at the mating-type locus (mat1). A heritable DNA strand- and sequence-specific imprinting event was previously postulated to be required to cleave the chromosome at mat1 to initiate recombination required for switching. The pedigree analysis presented here demonstrates that swi1, swi3, and swi7 genes are required for the DNA cleavage step directly, and not for the imprinting function, since mutations in these genes reduce the efficiency of initial (i.e., switching of one in four granddaughters) and recurrent switching equally. However, when the mat1 gene sequence is placed adjacent to the indigenous mat1 locus, apparently it is imprinted inefficiently, since recurrent switches of the inserted locus occur nearly five times more often than the initial switches. This "runaway switching" is the first evidence formally demonstrating both the existence of and the requirement for an imprinted mat1 DNA, making it cleavable and consequently swichable. Second, the double-stranded break constitutes another imprinted event as it is evidenced to be inherited from the parental cell.
The Nature and Concept of Accountability: A Case Study of Three Entities in Fiji

The notion of accountability is a vague concept. This is because the appropriateness of accountabilities depends on the context in which accountability is discharged to the recipient of information. The impetus for this study stems from a critical issue of whether discharging accountability to stakeholders by entities can be generalizable to all accountability structures and to understand how appropriately accountabilities are being rendered by entities in Fiji to their stakeholders. In light of this, our research method involves a case study of three entities in Fiji namely, Paradise Beverages (Fiji) Ltd, Home Finance Company Ltd (HFC) and Greenpeace Australia Pacific (GAP). Interviews were also conducted with three individuals from these three entities. The findings indicate that accountability is always context specific. Accountabilities towards stakeholders can be improved on but cannot be generalized to other accountability structures. This study contributes to our understanding of the vagueness of the nature of accountability and although our findings cannot be generalizable, other entities across the globe can understand that accountability can never be perfect for all of their stakeholder groups.
Ein ganzheitlicher Ansatz zur Digitalisierung und Extraktion von Metadaten in Videoarchiven

Dem standigen Wachstum von Multimediaarchiven mit Automatisierung zu begegnen erfordert neue Ansatze und Losungen bei der Extraktion und Verwaltung von Metadaten. Dazu wurden die Frameworks AMOPA und Imtecs entwickelt, um Informationen uber den Inhalt der Multimediadaten und die technischen Randbedingungen ihres Einspielvorganges zu extrahieren und den nachfolgenden Stationen des Workflows zur automatischen Steuerung ihrer Arbeitsschritte zur Verfugung zu stellen. Im Archiv angewandt, ermoglichen sie sowohl umfangreichere und komplexere als auch spezifischere Suchen und Anfragen.
E-Banking in Estonia: Reasons and Benefits of the Rapid Growth

The new information technology is becoming an important factor in the future development of financial services industry, and especially banking industry. Banks are faced with a number of important questions, for examples how to take full advantage of new technology opportunities, how e-developments change the ways customers interact with the financial services provider, etc. In paper author analyzes the main criteria for successful internet-bank strategy and brings out benefits of e-banking from the point of view of banks, their clients and the economy in general. Author argues that Estonia has achieved significant success in the implementation of electronic banking; it is on the top of the emerging markets in this area and even outpaces the achievements of some developed countries. This progress is not coincidence; it has external and also subjective reasons. In paper, author tries to analyze the main reasons and factors responsible for the rapid growth of electronic banking in Estonia. In order to achieve this goal banks use a wide variety of measures, such as price concessions, sales of bank-service packages as well as offering additional non-banking services. Also some possible future trends for e-banking development in Estonia are discussed. The last e-banking development was mobile phone banking (m-banking), which allows paying for goods and services by mobile phone and was implemented in 2002.
Using service value networks to positioning the business: a services gateway customer interface solution

Businesses seeking to improve their product or service positioning with their customers may bridge this divide through intelligently-targeted contributions that attempt to match with their customer input requests. From a business perspective, a 'reach-out' towards seemingly impossible goals, competing opposites, and multiple solution approaches may enhance the transgression towards building new intelligences and engagement processes that further link the business with its customers. From a customer perspective, the business deliverables suite must sufficiently meet their expectations. Such approaches are best built from the business-customer interface outwards using a 'service value networks' and 'value expectations' framework as the underlying intelligence suite for the interface 'Services Gateway'. The 'Services Gateway' targets aligning and re-aligning the business with its engaging customers, and as a real-time solution.
Do Preferential Trade Agreements Discourage Procurement Discrimination

As traditional “at the border” trade barriers have fallen, governments have become increasingly concerned about “behind the border” barriers such as discriminatory public procurement. Although a growing number of governments have tried to control procurement discr imination by including rules about public procurement in preferential trad e agreements, we currently know nothing about the effects of such rules. This paper is the first to examine the impact of preferential procurement agre ements (PPAs) on procurement discrimination. We assemble an original dataset of PPAs and examine their effects in a sample of 112 countries from 1990-2007. In an exhaustive analysis that employs different model sp ecifications and estimation techniques, different subsamples, and different gro ups of preferential agreements, we find no evidence that PPAs reduce discrimination against foreign producers. We speculate that the irrelevan ce of PPAs stems from the opaque nature of public procurement and the consequent difficulty of identifying treaty violations. Our results thus sh ed light on the conditions under which governments are not likely to keep their international commitments.
Towards a “theoretical toolbox” for strategic sourcing

Purpose – The goal of this paper is to provide a broad foundation for future research in the area of strategic sourcing.Design/methodology/approach – The foundation is derived by drawing from various well‐established organizational theories. Specifically, strategic sourcing was viewed from the perspective of institutional theory, resource dependence theory, network theory, systems theory, resource/knowledge‐based views of the firm, transaction cost economics, agency theory, strategic choice theory, sociocognitive theory, and critical theory.Findings – By viewing strategic sourcing through the lens of ten organizational theories, this research provides multiple insights into many interrelated strategic sourcing questions, such as when to make, buy or ally, how many and which suppliers, and how to manage sourcing relationships. The paper offers a rich and diverse foundation to foster future theory‐building activities in sourcing and supply management research.Originality/value – While some of these theory b.
An adaptive paradigm for computer-aided detection of colonic polyps

Most previous efforts in developing computer-aided detection (CADe) of colonic polyps apply similar measures or parameters to detect polyps regardless of their locations under an implicit assumption that all the polyps reside in a similar local environment, e.g. on a relatively flat colon wall. In reality, this implicit assumption is frequently invalid, because the haustral folds can have a very different local environment from that of the relatively flat colon wall. We conjecture that this assumption may be a major cause of missing the detection of polyps, especially small polyps (<10 mm linear size) located on the haustral folds. In this paper, we take the concept of adaptiveness and present an adaptive paradigm for CADe of colonic polyps. Firstly, we decompose the complicated colon structure into two simplified sub-structures, each of which has similar properties, of (1) relatively flat colon wall and (2) ridge-shaped haustral folds. Then we develop local environment descriptions to adaptively reflect each of these two simplified sub-structures. To show the impact of the adaptiveness of the local environment descriptions upon the polyp detection task, we focus on the local geometrical measures of the volume data for both the detection of initial polyp candidates (IPCs) and the reduction of false positives (FPs) in the IPC pool. The experimental outcome using the local geometrical measures is very impressive such that not only the previously-missed small polyps on the folds are detected, but also the previously miss-removed small polyps on the folds during FP reduction are retained. It is expected that this adaptive paradigm will have a great impact on detecting the small polyps, measuring their volumes and volume changes over time, and optimizing their management plan.
The consumer-brand relationship paradox

This study attempts to investigate and understand the unexplored paradoxical intersection between a relationship-oriented marketing philosophy and consumers who are seemingly uninterested in relational behaviour with brands. A mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods have been applied with the aim to illuminate this paradox through extensive revision of relevant literature, and implementation of empirical research. The research provided evidence that commitment, engagement and involvement are instrumental variables in relation to consumers’ interest in relational behaviour. They were found to statistically predict the level of brand loyalty. Respondents depicted low levels of involvement, commitment, engagement and brand loyalty. Likewise had significant negative responses towards relationship offerings (ROs) from brands. This was though significantly determined by the level of ROs. A number of three to four ROs in a month were found to have remarkably negative impact on consumers behavioural brand loyalty (BBL), attitudinal brand loyalty (ABL) and intentions to recommend (ITR) a brand. Likewise, consumers’ motivation for engaging with brands were steered by simpler motives as making a purchase, getting discounts and receiving customer service. Thus, provide additional evidence to the claim that consumers have little interest in deep relationships with brands. The main conclusion is that a consumer-brand relationship (CBR) paradox exist. Consequently, marketers must realise that not all consumers are receptive to ROs or interested in brand relationships. Thus, cannot be managed as relationships and without consequences be forced into one. Subsequently, marketing thinking and efforts should be diversified and account for this.
Intracoronary, adenovirus-mediated Akt gene transfer in heart limits infarct size following ischemia-reperfusion injury in vivo.

BACKGROUND Previous data have shown that enhanced Akt signaling inhibits cardiac myocyte apoptosis in vitro and in vivo. To elucidate the contribution of apoptosis to the pathogenesis of the infarct, we investigated whether intra-coronary Akt gene delivery could reduce gross infarct size following ischemia/reperfusion injury. METHODS AND RESULTS Replication-defective adenoviral constructs encoding a myristoylated, constitutively-active form of Akt (myrAkt) or beta -galactosidase were delivered to rat hearts by intracoronary perfusion. Twenty-four h after gene transduction, hearts in both groups underwent 45 min of ischemia followed by 4 h of reperfusion. A third group of animals also underwent ischemia-reperfusion injury but were not transduced with an adenoviral vector. The proportion of the left ventricle at risk was not different among the experimental groups. However, infarct size as a proportion of the area at risk was significantly lower in myrAkt-treated group than in the beta -galactosidase treated group or in the control group that was not subject to intracoronary perfusion (myrAkt=20.9+/-2.7%v beta -galactosidase=56.1+/-3.9% and control=46.2+/-4.6%, P<0.05), as was infarct size as a proportion of the total left ventricle (myrAkt=11.4+/-3.2 v beta -galactosidase=32. 9+/-3.3 and control=23.5+/-3.0, P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS These data demonstrate that Akt signaling limits infarct size following ischemia/reperfusion injury and they indicate that the activation of this pathway may be useful in protecting against myocardial loss in the diseased heart.
ON POLITICAL PARTIES : WHAT ARE THE ISSUES ? The Origins of Political Parties

A central claim of democratic theory is that democracy induces governments to be responsive to the preferences of the people. Political parties organize politics in every modern democracy, and some observers claim that parties are what induce democracies to be responsive. Yet, according to others, parties give voice to extremists and reduce the responsiveness of governments to the citizenry. The debate about parties and democracy takes on renewed importance as new democracies around the globe struggle with issues of representation and governability. I show that our view of the impact of parties on democratic responsiveness hinges on what parties are—their objectives and organization. I review competing theories of parties, sketch their testable implications, and note the empirical findings that may help adjudicate among these theories. I also review debates about the origins of parties, about the determinants of party-system size and characteristics, and about party competition. Political parties created democracy.modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of the parties. E. E. Schattschneider (1942)
Incompatible BLOCK: wonders accompanied interface

For interface design, improving user curiosity is important, as is intuitiveness and intelligibility. We think the wonder of 2D property input becoming 3D, as expected by the user, in the range of matching will be effective for enhancing not only curiosity but also availability. In this study, we developed the 3D modeling software "Incompatible BLOCK" with an interface of such wonders. This paper describes the four wonders of the interface of Incompatible BLOCK, introduces the mechanism, and discusses the usefulness of a wonders-accompanied interface from user evaluations.