Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Activation of Proliferator-activated Receptors α and γ Induces Apoptosis of Human Monocyte-derived Macrophages*

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) have been implicated in metabolic diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, and atherosclerosis, due to their activity in liver and adipose tissue on genes involved in lipid and glucose homeostasis. Here, we show that the PPARα and PPARγ forms are expressed in differentiated human monocyte-derived macrophages, which participate in inflammation control and atherosclerotic plaque formation. Whereas PPARα is already present in undifferentiated monocytes, PPARγ expression is induced upon differentiation into macrophages. Immunocytochemistry analysis demonstrates that PPARα resides constitutively in the cytoplasm, whereas PPARγ is predominantly nuclear localized. Transient transfection experiments indicate that PPARα and PPARγ are transcriptionally active after ligand stimulation. Ligand activation of PPARγ, but not of PPARα, results in apoptosis induction of unactivated differentiated macrophages as measured by the TUNEL assay and the appearance of the active proteolytic subunits of the cell death protease caspase-3. However, both PPARα and PPARγ ligands induce apoptosis of macrophages activated with tumor necrosis factor α/interferon γ. Finally, PPARγ inhibits the transcriptional activity of the NFκB p65/RelA subunit, suggesting that PPAR activators induce macrophage apoptosis by negatively interfering with the anti-apoptotic NFκB signaling pathway. These data demonstrate a novel function of PPAR in human macrophages with likely consequences in inflammation and atherosclerosis.
The Analysis on the effects of ICT (Information Communication Technology) capital assets in fiscal year 2001 or 2002(in Japanese)

It is a main issue of this paper that capital of ICT (Information Communication Technology) in many industries and companies is not clear about whether it affected corporate management. We have been studying on this issue since 1996 and published several papers in some scholarly journals. But it has been very difficult for us to derive definite conclusions from this issue clearly. It is mainly because we can’t access to the exhaustive and reliable data for analysis on the issue. This time, the nation-wide survey data about ICT have just been available. And we can also make the data link to some financial databases of private companies. In this paper, we have measured the economical effects of ICT capital by using these data. As tentative conclusions firstly, in fiscal year 2001 or 2002, the economical effects of ICT capital in most industries will be neutral or slightly positive because of economic conditions in Japan are leveling off. However, the effects of ICT capital is better than other inputs such as Labor and non ICT capital because of the effects of other input will be almost negative. Secondly, we have measured the ICT capital ratio which shows share of ICT capital to total machinery capital and also analyzed the positive impact for the growth rate of TFP. We can’t see clearly the positive impact of the ICT capital ratio for the growth rate of TFP, but we could show its potential by seeing coefficient of the ICT capital ratio. These are important results for the advanced ICT, such as evolution of information networks, and also point out that we must study how to utilize the advanced ICT in management. Additionally, these results will support our objective that is to consider the directions of more effective ICT capital, as well as to give right direction in the corporate management for the future of Japan. For the purpose, we must continue to analyze the economical effects of ICT capital assets by using the exhaustive and reliable data and also maintain such a data.
Behavioural assessment of the effects of tumour growth in rats and the influence of the analgesics carprofen and meloxicam

Very little is known concerning the occurrence of pain in cancer research models. We wished to establish whether a behaviour-based approach, originally developed to assess postoperative pain, could be used to determine positive effects of the analgesics carprofen and meloxicam in rats that might be experiencing pain during tumour development in an orthotopic model of bladder cancer. An invasive but non-metastatic rat bladder cancer cell line was surgically implanted into the bladder wall of 57 inbred Fisher344 rats. The rats underwent daily clinical assessments. When clinical signs consistent with chronic pain were apparent, behavioural data were collected from 44 animals during 2×10 min periods, immediately before and one hour after a subcutaneous injection of either physiological saline (0.9%; 0.2 ml/100 g), carprofen (5 mg/kg) or meloxicam (2 mg/kg). Treatment-associated behaviour changes were then compared between groups. The lack of active behaviour, both before and after each treatment, was consistent with established clinical signs of pain. The rats were so inactive following the treatment that the behavioural technique we had previously developed was of comparatively little use in determining either pain severity or analgesic efficacy. One very prominent effect, however, was an increase in ventral abdominal licking in the control (saline) group. As this was absent in rats given meloxicam or carprofen, and has previously been considered to indicate pain emanating from damaged tissue, it was concluded that the analgesic-treated rats gained at least some benefit from the drug treatments, but it was not possible to gauge the extent of this. Handling for examination or treatment may have intensified pain in rats in the control group, and so this should be avoided whenever possible. It is likely that post-surgical pain differs markedly from cancer pain, so a different set of behavioural markers may be needed to assess it effectively. More intensive behaviour monitoring may help to develop a suitable technique for detecting the onset of, and assess the severity of pain that may occur during tumour development.
Propagation and guiding of intense laser pulses in plasmas.

A two-dimensional, axisymmetric, relativistic fluid model describing the propagation of intense laser pulses in plasmas is formulated and numerically evaluated. Relativistic guiding is ineffective in preventing the diffractive spreading of short laser pulses and long pulses become modulated due to relativistic and wake-field effects. Laser pulses can be propagated over many Rayleigh lengths by use of a performed plasma density channel or by tailoring the pulse profile. Ultrahigh axial electric fields can be generated behind the laser pulse.
Retail centres: it's time to make them convenient

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the influence of time convenience on shopping behaviour in the light of a time scarcity phenomenon that is reported to have reached epidemic proportions in many markets.Design/methodology/approach – The paper begins with a survey of consumer households, examining the importance shoppers assign to time convenience. This is followed by a supply‐side comparison of malls and shopping strips against the attributes of time convenience.Findings – The results indicate that time convenience has a salient influence on consumers' patronage behaviour, and that malls and strips differ in their provision of this key attribute.Practical implications – Retail planners must give serious thought to creating retail environments that allow shoppers to “buy” time. Providing time convenience via one‐stop shopping, extended trading hours, proximity to home or work and enclosure offers one such strategy for the shopping mall and shopping strip.Originality/value – The focus on con.
Texture Based Classification and Segmentation of Tissues Using DT-CWT Feature Extraction Methods

In this study, four different dual-tree complex wavelet (DT-CWT) based texture feature extraction methods are developed and compared to segment and classify tissues. Methods that are proposed in this study are based on local energy calculations of sub-bands. Two of the methods use rotation variant texture features and the other two use rotation invariant features. The methods are tested on two texture compositions from the Brodatz texture database and two actual magnetic resonance (MR) images. Results show that there is not a significant difference between using rotation variant or invariant features. On the other hand, for the same Brodatz textures, all DT-CWT based feature extraction methods are competitive with other filtering approaches.
Main risk factors for nephropathy in type 2 diabetes mellitus are plasma cholesterol levels, mean blood pressure, and hyperglycemia.

BACKGROUND The control of hyperglycemia is of major importance in the treatment of patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus. However, there is no consensus about the required degree of metabolic control in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and about the role of hyperglycemia in diabetic nephropathy and in the development of atherosclerosis in relation to other risk factors. PATIENTS AND METHODS A prospective, long-term follow-up study was conducted on 574 patients, aged 40 to 60 years, with recent onset of type 2 diabetes mellitus. Patients were initially normotensive and had normal renal function and a normal urinary albumin excretion rate (<30 mg/24 h). The patients were followed up for 2 to 9 years (mean +/- SD, 7.8 +/- 0.9 years). Levels of hemoglobin A1c and plasma lipids, mean blood pressure, and body mass index (calculated as the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) were determined periodically. Cigarette smoking and socioeconomic status were recorded. Renal status was evaluated by the logarithm of the final urinary albumin excretion rate and by the decline in reciprocal creatinine values. Definite clinical events including death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, angina pectoris, congestive heart failure, and peripheral vascular disease were recorded. RESULTS At the end of the study the urinary albumin excretion rate remained normal (<30 mg/24 h) in 373 patients (65%), 111 (19%) had microalbuminuria (30-300 mg/24 h), and 90 (16%) had overt albuminuria (>300 mg/24 h). Logistic regression models demonstrated that the correlation between hemoglobin A1c levels and the risk of albuminuria is exponential. Multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that levels of total cholesterol, mean blood pressure, and hemoglobin A1c were the main factors associated with the decrease in renal function and with the increase in albuminuria. The combination of values higher than the 50th percentile of all 3 factors defined a high-risk patient population. These high-risk patients had an odds ratio of 43 (95% confidence interval, 25-106) for microalbuminuria and 15 (95% confidence interval, 9-25) for clinical events related to arteriosclerosis compared with the rest of the group. Low levels of high-density lipoprotein, body mass index, cigarette smoking, low socioeconomic status, and male sex were all significantly associated with diabetic nephropathy, as well as with the manifestations of arteriosclerosis. CONCLUSIONS The combination of blood pressure values in the high-normal range with moderately elevated levels of total cholesterol and hemoglobin A1c defines a high-risk group for the progression to diabetic nephropathy and for clinical events related to arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
Capital Structure and Financial Performance: Evidence from Pakistan (Kse 100 Index)

Literature on capital structure suggests that a firm’s capital structure play an important role in determining its future growth, sustainability and financial performance. It is observed that investor’s are highly interested in the performance of firms listed in the stock market. Empirical evidence gives little indication of identifying the casual relationship between capital structure of a firm and its financial performance, However it is generally believed that transactions and bankruptcy costs play a vital role in the choice of debt to equity financing. Debt/Equity ratio is commonly used as a measure of capital structure, while other ratios like (Earning per Share, Price/Earning Ratio, Operating profit Margin, Return on Asset, Return on equity) are used as proxies for firm performance. These ratios are used to study the relationship between capital structure and firm performance in the context of large private companies in Pakistan. A total of 83 companies are selected from KSE 100 index for our analysis. Findings of our study suggest that financial performance of firms is significantly affected by their capital structure and their relationship is negative in nature. Moreover capital structure of a firm is negatively related to its market value and also increases its risk level as the share of debt increases in the capital mix.
The Organizing Vision in Information Systems Innovation

We offer a revised institutional view of how new technology for information systems (IS) comes to be applied and diffused among organizations. Previous research argues that early adoption of a technological innovation is based on local, rational organizational choice, while later adoption is institutionalized and taken for granted. We suggest that institutional processes are engaged from the beginning. Specifically, a diverse interorganizational community creates and employs an organizing vision of an IS innovation that is central to its early, as well as later, diffusion. This vision serves key functions in interpretation, legitimation, and the organization and mobilization of economic roles and exchanges. The development and influence of an organizing vision is determined by a variety of institutional forces. Among these forces, the community's discourse serves as the developmental engine. Other factors---business commerce, the IS practitioners' world view, the motivating business problematic, the core technology, and material processes of adoption and diffusion---provide the discourse with its content, structure, motivation, and direction. Primary development of the organizing vision takes place during the innovation's earliest diffusion. The hesitant early majority among the prospective adopters relies on this development in its efforts to make sense of the innovation. Where the organizing vision remains underdeveloped after early adoption, later diffusion and institutionalization of the innovation is likely to be retarded.
Approximation Algorithms for NP-Hard Problems

Approximation algorithms have developed in response to the impossibility of solving a great variety of important optimization problems. Too frequently, when attempting to get a solution for a problem, one is confronted with the fact that the problem is NP-hard. This, in the words of Garey and Johnson, means "I can't find an efficient algorithm, but neither can all of these famous people. " While this is a significant theoretical step, it hardly qualifies as a cheering piece of news.If the optimal solution is unattainable then it is reasonable to sacrifice optimality and settle for a "good" feasible solution that can be computed efficiently. Of course, we would like to sacrifice as little optimality as possible, while gaining as much as possible in efficiency. Trading-off optimality in favor of tractability is the paradigm of approximation algorithms.The main themes of this book revolve around the design of such algorithms and the "closeness" to optimum that is achievable in polynomial time. To evaluate the limits of approximability, it is important to derive lower bounds or inapproximability results. In some cases, approximation algorithms must satisfy additional structural requirements such as being on-line, or working within limited space. This book reviews the design techniques for such algorithms and the developments in this area since its inception about three decades ago.
Electronic Elections: Trust Through Engineering

It comes with many risks but brings also many benefits. Instead of flat out rejecting the technology as uncontrollably dangerous, we advocate in this paper a different technological angle that renders electronic elections trustworthy beyond the usual levels of doubt. We exploit the trust that voters currently have into the democratic process and model our techniques around that observation accordingly. In particular, we propose a technique of trace emitting computations to record the individual steps of an electronic voting machine for a posteriori validation on an acceptably small trusted computing base. Our technology enables us to prove that an electronic elections preserves the voter's intent, assuming that the voting machine and the trace verifier are independent.
A Study of Social Accounting Disclosures in the Annual Reports of Nigerian Companies

Social accounting is concerned with the development of measurement system to monitor social performance. It is rational assessment of and disclosure on some meaningful domain of companies' activities that have social impact. This study examines the practice of social accounting disclosure in Nigerian companies. Forty companies from eight sectors quoted in the Nigerian Stock Exchange were randomly sampled. Data were collected from the annual reports of the companies' for the period 2005 to 2007 and the level of disclosure is measured using content analysis and descriptive analysis. The paper found that 82.5% of the companies sampled present social accounting information in their annual reports. The results show that Nigerian companies prefer to disclose social accounting information in the Directors Report, Chairman's Statement and Notes to the Accounts in the form of short qualitative information. Human resources, community involvement and environment were identified as the most popular themes. Hence, the paper recommends among others that companies should take social accounting as a moral duty; legislation for all companies to disclose social accounting information in Nigeria; social indicators to be developed at the national level in the area of employment opportunities, environmental control, energy conservation, health care etc and professional accounting bodies in the country should collaborate to expand research in social accounting.
Neurosurgery in rural Nigeria: A prospective study

Background: Africa has very few neurosurgeons. These are almost exclusively in urban centers. Consequently, people in rural areas, most of the African population, have poor or no access to neurosurgical care. We have recently pioneered rural neurosurgery in Nigeria. Objectives: This report details our initial experiences and the profile of neurosurgical admissions in our center. Methods: A prospective observational study of all neurosurgical patients managed at a rural tertiary health institution in Nigeria from December 2010 to May 2012 was done. Simple descriptive data analysis was performed. Results: A total of 249 males (75.2%) and 82 females (24.8%) were managed. The median age was 37 years (range: Day of birth – 94 years). Trauma was the leading cause of presentation with 225 (68.0%) and 35 (10.6%) having sustained head and spinal injuries, respectively. Operative intervention was performed in 54 (16.3%). Twenty-four (7.2%) patients discharged against medical advice, mostly for economic reasons. Most patients (208, 63.4%) had satisfactory outcome while 30 (9.1%) died. Conclusion: Trauma is the leading cause of rural neurosurgical presentations. There is an urgent need to improve access to adequate neurosurgical care in the rural communities.
Determinants of Internal Auditors Effectiveness: Case of Ethiopian Public Sectors

The main objective of this study is to investigate determinants of internal auditors' effectiveness in Ethiopian public sectors. Public sectors are established with the aim of providing basic public services effectively and efficiently to the whole society. The efficiency and effectiveness of management operations in public sectors, on the other hand, are ensured by the effectiveness of their employees. Internal auditors, the focus of this study and one key employee of public offices, are supposed to work independently and objectively to improve an organization's operations and services quality. Despite of their roles in public sectors, internal auditors have gained less credit from their management that doubts the effectiveness of internal auditors. To investigate determinants of internal auditors' effectiveness in public sectors, primary data was collected from managers and internal auditors by administrating Likert-Scale type questionnaire in 30 public sectors. The Ordinary Least Square (OLS) linear regression model was used to analysis the collected data. The findings of the study revealed that organizational independence of internal auditors was the most dominate determinant of internal auditors' effectiveness with positive significant effect. The presence of internal audit charter in public sectors has also positive effect on internal auditors' effectiveness. Thus, the management of public sectors should work aggressively on the means of assuring organizational independence of internal auditors and the presence of internal audit charter in each sector.
Ruminal microbial and fermentative changes associated with experimentally induced subacute acidosis in steers.

We used six ruminally cannulated steers in a two-period crossover design to study ruminal fermentative and microbial changes associated with induced subacute acidosis. Steers were adapted to either an 80% alfalfa hay (hay-adapted)- or corn grain (grain-adapted)-based concentrate diet. After feed was withheld for 24 h, steers were overfed with an all-grain diet at 3.5 x NEm daily for 3 d. Ruminal contents and jugular blood samples were collected before withholding feed and at 0 and 12 h daily for 3 d during the overfeeding period. Ruminal samples were analyzed for pH, lactate, VFA concentrations, and counts of total anaerobic, amylolytic, lactic acid-producing and -fermenting bacteria, and ciliated protozoa. Blood samples were analyzed to assess acid-base status. Ruminal pH declined to a range of 5.5 to 5.0 with increased VFA concentrations, but normal lactate concentrations (<5 mM) were indicative of subacute acidosis. Total viable and amylolytic bacterial counts were higher (P < .05) in grain-adapted than hay-adapted steers. Anaerobic lactobacilli counts increased over time (P < .01) in both groups and were generally higher in grain-adapted than hay-adapted steers. Lactate-utilizing bacteria were initially greater in grain-adapted than hay-adapted steers and increased over time in both groups following grain challenge. Total ciliates were initially higher (P < .05) in grain-adapted than hay-adapted steers and decreased after 48 h in both groups. Blood acid-base changes were minimal. Bacterial changes associated with subacute acidosis resemble those reported during adaptation to grain feeding, and the decline in ciliated protozoa may be the only microbial indicator of a potentially acidotic condition in the rumen.
Cochleovestibular nerve compression syndrome. II. Vestibular nerve histopathology and theory of pathophysiology

The present study was undertaken to systematically examine and characterize pathological changes in vestibular nerve specimens obtained at surgery in patients with symptomatic cochleovestibular nerve compression syndrome (CNCS). Vestibular nerves were obtained in six cases of CNCS and were intermingled with vestibular nerves obtained in cases of Meniere's disease. All of the nerve specimens were coded and reviewed microscopically in a blind‐study fashion by the neuropathologist. The vestibular nerves obtained from CNCS cases showed significant endoneurial fibrosis, compared to controls (specimens from patients with Meniere's disease). Based on observations in this study, as well as the clinical symptoms and audiovestibular test findings in these patients, a theory of pathophysiology in CNCS of the cochleovestibular nerve is proposed. The implications of this theory are discussed with respect to the diagnosis of CNCS.