Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quality control of ribosomal RNA mediated by polynucleotide phosphorylase and RNase R

Despite their overall accuracy, errors in macromolecular processes, such as rRNA synthesis and ribosome assembly, inevitably occur. However, whether these errors are remediated and how this might be accomplished is not known. In previous work, we showed that a double mutant strain lacking both polynucleotide phosphorylase (PNPase) and RNase R activities is inviable. In the course of examining the molecular basis for this phenotype, we found that shifting a temperature-sensitive mutant strain to 42°C led to cessation of growth and loss of cell viability. Northern analysis of RNA isolated from such cells after the temperature shift revealed that fragments of 16S and 23S rRNA accumulated to a high level, and that the amount of ribosomes and ribosomal subunits decreased due to defects in ribosome assembly. rRNA fragments were not detected at 31°C or when single mutant strains were grown at 42°C. Pulse–chase analysis showed that the rRNA fragments appeared within 5 min at 42°C, and that they accumulated before the loss of cell viability. The data are consistent with a model in which PNPase and RNase R mediate a previously unknown quality control process that normally removes defective rRNAs as soon as they are generated. In the absence of these RNases, rRNA fragments accumulate, leading to interference with ribosome maturation and ultimately to cell death.
Marketing, Strategic Planning and the Theory of the Firm

The strategic planning process is inextricably linked with the issue of corporate goal formulation. It is argued that greater progress will be made in understanding marketing's participation in strategic planning if marketing's role in the goal formulation process can be explicated. Unfortunately, the extant theories of the firm are inadequate in varying degrees for this purpose. A new theory of the firm is proposed that attempts to specify the role of marketing and the other functional areas in the goal setting and strategic planning process.
EXPORT AND LANGUAGE BARRIERS IN THE WELSH SME SECTOR

In response to recent evidence which indicates that UK companies are losing trading opportunities due to relatively poor linguistic skills, an increasing interest has been expressed by government agencies, training bodies and the business and academic community in the foreign language requirements of UK firms. Currently, however, little research has examined the importance of language barriers relative to other factors which are perceived to inhibit export performance. In addition, previous research has not focused on how these factors differ in respect of SMEs and their larger counterparts. Based on a survey of 939 Welsh manufacturing firms, from which a 22% response rate was obtained, the purpose of this paper is to present some new empirical evidence relating to language barriers, and other perceived inhibitors, to improving the export performance of domestic manufacturing firms located in Wales. A comparative analysis of small, medium and large companies was undertaken and indicates that there are significant differences in perceived export and language barriers which are related to firm size. A further key finding of the study is that a number of export impediments are considered to be significantly more problematic than language barriers. However, 21% of respondents considered that communication barriers currently presented a problematic/very problematic factor inhibiting export performance; with a larger proportion (29%) of respondents indicating that they considered that their future trading performance would improve significantly if language skills were improved within their firms.
The Role of FDG-PET in the Diagnosis and Staging of Ocular Adnexal Lymphoproliferative Disease

Abstract Purpose: To further evaluate fluorine 18 fluoro-deoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG PET) in the staging of ocular adnexal lymphoproliferative disease (OALD). Methods: Retrospective and prospective case series with review of clinical and imaging records including computed tomography (CT), FDG PET (±PET/CT) and/or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Results: Thirty-four patients had FDG PET and CT scans at initial staging. Eleven were retrospectively reviewed and 23 were prospectively enrolled. Of 34 patients, 17 (50%) had primary disease, 17 (50%) had secondary and of these, 13 patients (38%) had OALD as their initial manifestation. Sixteen patients had active systemic disease in conjunction with their orbital disease. Systemic disease was demonstrated by FDG PET (± CT) in 15 of 16 (94%) patients and 11 of 16 (69%) patients with CT. FDG PET found orbital disease in 27 of 34 patients (79%) versus 33 of 34 patients with orbital CT (97%). Four of 16 patients in which FDG-PET detected systemic disease where CT did not were upstaged and their management changed significantly in 5 cases. Conclusions: This study reaffirms FDG PET as an important part of initial staging. Our study suggests FDG PET detects systemic disease more reliably than CT alone and results in significant changes in management. Our findings suggest FDG PET detection for local OALD is less sensitive than CT. MRI is helpful in augmenting other imaging modalities in further identifying disease. Given the prevalence of simultaneous systemic presentations of OALD, FDG PET in this regard is especially important and highlights the need for coordinated multidisciplinary care.
Long‐Distance‐Commuter (LDC) Lane: A New Concept for Freeway Traffic Management

Many freeways connect two major cities (e.g., Gold Coast to Brisbane) in Australia. A great portion of commuters travel between these two cities whereas the number of commuters taking the on‐ramps and off‐ramps in between is comparatively small. Enlightened by this observation, we propose a novel and practical concept for freeway traffic management: long‐distance‐commuter (LDC) lane. The LDC lane is a dedicated lane that only commuters traveling between the two major cities can use. Since there is no or only minor disturbance from forced lane‐changing of vehicles from other lanes, the LDC lane admits a much higher capacity. Our preliminary case study based on the freeway between Gold Coast and Brisbane demonstrates that using the LDC lane significantly increases the average speed as well as overall capacity.
Incidence of Clostridium difficile Infections in Patients Receiving Antimicrobial and Acid‐Suppression Therapy

Study Objectives. To determine the incidence of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) at one community hospital by identifying patients with stool samples positive for C. difficile toxin A or B, and to compare the incidence with a 2008 national estimate; and to determine which patient characteristics and concomitant antimicrobial and acid‐suppression drugs are risk factors for the development of CDI.
Well-Being Measurement Scale For Farmers In Northeast Thailand

The purpose of this research study was to develop a well-being scale for the farmers of the northeastern region of Thailand. This descriptive research employed a workshop for ten qualified representatives of the personnel — selected by purposive sampling — from both the government and private sectors working with farmers in Chaiyaphum Province. The workshop was designed to find solutions for meanings, factors, indicators, and a scale of well-being of the farmers in the Northeast based on data from previous research on the meanings and well-being indicators of northeastern farmers. Our Scale was drafted and then examined in terms of its content validity, construction validity, reliability and the norm of the scale. Twenty-one experts evaluated the content validity. Data were collected from 1,600 farmers living in Chaiyaphum Province by multi- stage random sampling. Factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient were performed. The Northeastern Farmers’ Wellbeing Scale (NFW Scale) was successfully completed and included 79 items in 12 domains with 49 indicators; including: illness (2), physical and health services (6), mental state (3), mental power (3), social (4), spiritual and beliefs (7), knowledge (4), family (5), economics (4), financial (4), housing (4) and environmental management (3). The reliability was 0.93. The overall scores of the NFW Scale were assigned to 3 groups using a normative model: ‘better well - being’ ≥ 299; average between 260 and 298 ; and, ‘below average’ ≤ 259.
Project Report: A Survey of Operating Reserve Markets in U.S. ISO/RTO-managed Electric Energy Regions

This survey was undertaken as part of the initial phase of a larger market design project. The goal of the project is to design a wholesale electric power market such that electric energy storage (EES) resources are permitted to participate and receive compensation that is commensurate with the benefits they provide to the grid. This survey compares and contrasts
Intellectual Property Protection for Non-Innovative Markets: The Case of IMS Health

This article attempts to answer the question: “When may an undertaking holding a dominant position through intellectual property right protection have abused its position? ” My argument is that not all markets involving intellectual property rights are innovative markets. As shown in IMS Health, when the product involved is pharmaceutical data, consumer demand for innovation in data format becomes insignificant. It is not that such a demand does not exist, but that consumers could not migrate to a more innovative product because they have spent a large amount of time and money to collect data and store them in the data structure of the old product (the IMS format). This is when the market becomes non-innovative.
The adoption of direct banking services

The adoption of new products and services is of increasing importance to many industries. This is especially so for those organisations that are marketing technological innovations. In this paper a model of the perceived innovation attributes and the personal characteristics of adopters and non‐adopters was developed, based on literature and consumer research. These are then tested using a questionnaire concerned with the UK market for direct banking services. The results are presented in detail which indicate that the model presented is an excellent predictor of adoption behaviour. From these results a number of interesting implications have been highlighted for marketing practice.
Fostering Inter-Departmental Institutional Memory in the Nonprofit Sector: Borrowing Microtransaction Knowledge Strategies from a Successful U.S. Restaurant Chain

The purpose of this paper is to describe practices used for knowledge storing, sharing, and gathering across a shift-based organization where narratives may not overlap among other employees. The paper uses a case study to identify nine best practices used in a successful, family-owned chain restaurant in the southern United States, and illustrate how those practices might be useful in a nonprofit organization. These practices include consistent training procedures, routine plans for mundane work, cross-cultural/departmental communication strategies, staggered cross-staff notifications, visual conveyance of information, shift reports, and weekly management meetings. While the connection between a restaurant and a nonprofit organization may not seem readily apparent, a U.S. survey of fundraisers (n = 580) revealed the two industries have many traits in common. Both industries struggle with employee turnover, work with time-sensitive materials that require rapid turnaround, and act in highly competitive markets. I argue that the nonprofit sector may benefit from the procedures that this restaurant had in place to share the outcomes of their accomplishments and failures, and that a restaurant shift serves as a hyper-speed version of daily processes found in any organization, and that outcomes may be more readily observed due to the nature and number of events that occur between the business’s open and close. This paper aims to provide suggestion for issues of handling employee training amidst turnover, creating usable institutional memory, and building interpersonal trust among employees.
Efficacy and late recurrences with wide electrical pulmonary vein isolation for persistent and permanent atrial fibrillation.

AIMS Early recurrences of atrial arrhythmia after wide electrically isolating ablation for atrial fibrillation (AF) are well described, but the long-term risk of recurrence for patients with persistent and permanent AF has not been studied in detail. METHODS AND RESULTS Fifty-six consecutive patients [45 men (80.4%), age 55.9 +/- 8.7 years] with persistent [39(69.6%)] or permanent [17(30.4%)] AF were followed for 21.6 +/- 8.8 months after ablation. Atrial fibrillation duration prior to ablation was 6.4 +/- 5.6 years. Electrically isolating lesions encircling the left and right pulmonary veins (PVs) in pairs were created. After 1.5 +/- 0.7 procedures, 48 (85.7%) had sinus rhythm (SR) at 21.6 +/- 8.8 months of follow-up: achieved with 1 procedure in 27 (56.3%) and without anti-arrhythmics in 30 (62.5%). Atrial fibrillation recurrence was observed in 69.6% after the first and 46.4% after the last procedure. Of those with late recurrences (>90 days) following the last procedure, most [18 (69.2%)] did not have early recurrences. Pre-procedural AF duration (P = 0.007) and female gender (P = 0.005) were independent predictors of recurrence following the last procedure. CONCLUSION Circumferential PV isolation is effective in most patients with persistent or permanent AF. However, repeat procedures are frequently required. Late recurrences are common and not precluded by the absence of early post-procedural arrhythmias.
Loyalty trends for the twenty‐first century

Purpose – As loyalty marketing programs have reached a state of maturity, the aim of this paper is to outline the key loyalty‐marketing trends for the twenty‐first century that can serve as guideposts as marketers create, expand and revamp their loyalty and customer relationship management (CRM) strategies.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses data and statistics from numerous loyalty‐marketing programs to support its conclusions.Findings – Five key loyalty‐marketing trends are identified and explored in detail: ubiquity; technology enables but imagination wins; coalition lite; customer analytics; and the Wow! factorPractical implications – The challenge for marketers is to reinvigorate the market with new strategies, tactics, and technologies backed by imagination, innovation and sound program design. The five key loyalty‐marketing trends for the twenty‐first century identified in this paper can serve as guideposts as marketers create, expand and revamp their loyalty and CRM strategies in the new .
[Relationship between the age of menarche, menopause and other factors and postmenopause osteoporosis].

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the relationship between osteoporosis (OP) and the age of menarche and menopause, parity and lactation and bone mineral density (BMD). METHODS BMD was measured in 1472 postmenopausal women by Norland XR-36 dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) from May 1999 to April 2003 in our hospital. All data of BMD were compared and statistically analyzed between women with different age of menarche and menopause, parity and lactation period. The diagnostic criteria of osteoporosis was defined by a loss of BMD greater than 2.5 standard deviations below average peak BMD of young adult women. RESULTS In all 1472 subjects, the incidence of osteoporosis is 58.5% (861/1472). There was significant increase in osteoporosis of lumbar spine in women with the age of menarche > or = 17 (119 out of 336 cases were with osteoporosis in lumbar) compared with women with age of menarche < or = 13 (75 out of 276 cases were with osteoporosis in lumbar). In women with menarche age of 11-13, 14-16, 17-19, lumbar vertebral (L(2-4)) BMD values were (0.83 +/- 0.16), (0.82 +/- 0.16), (0.80 +/- 0.14) g/cm(2), respectively. There was significant increase in BMD of lumbar in the menarche age group of 11-13 compared with the age group of 17-19 in women within menopause 1-10 years (P < 0.05). Among all women aged between 55-65, there was significant increase in OP in women with the menopause age < or = 48 compared with menopause age > or = 54 (P < 0.01). BMD of the L(2-4), Trochanter, Ward triangle was significantly increased in women who had had one delivery or being nulliparous compared with women having more than four deliveries; BMD of the L(2-4), Ward's triangle were significantly increased in women with less than six months of lactation compared with those lactating more than thirty-six months. CONCLUSIONS The later the menarche and the earlier the menopause, the higher the degree of osteoporosis; the more deliveries and period of lactation, the lower the BMD. Age is one of the high risk factors of osteoporosis.
Glucagon-like peptide 1 inhibition of gastric emptying outweighs its insulinotropic effects in healthy humans

Nauck, Michael A. , Ulrich Niedereichholz, Rainer Ettler, Jens Juul Holst, Cathrine Ørskov, Robert Ritzel, and Wolff H. Schmiegel. Glucagon-like peptide 1 inhibition of gastric emptying outweighs its insulinotropic effects in healthy humans. Am. J. Physiol. 273 (Endocrinol. Metab. 36): E981–E988, 1997. —Glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) has been shown to inhibit gastric emptying of liquid meals in type 2 diabetic patients. It was the aim of the present study to compare the action of physiological and pharmacological doses of intravenous GLP-1-(7—36) amide and GLP-1-(7—37) on gastric emptying in normal volunteers. Nine healthy subjects participated (26 6 3 yr; body mass index 22.9 6 1.6 kg/m2; hemoglobin A1C 5.0 6 0.2%) in five experiments on separate occasions after an overnight fast. A nasogastric tube was positioned for the determination of gastric volume by use of a dye-dilution technique (phenol red). GLP-1-(7—36) amide (0.4, 0.8, or 1.2 pmol · kg21 · min21), GLP-1-(7—37) (1.2 pmol ·kg21 ·min21), or placebo was infused intravenously from 230 to 240 min. A liquid meal (50 g sucrose, 8% amino acids, 440 ml, 327 kcal) was administered at 0 min. Glucose, insulin, and C-peptide were measured over 240 min. Gastric emptying was dose dependently slowed by GLP-1-(7—36) amide (P , 0.0001). Effects of GLP-1-(7—37) at 1.2 pmol ·kg21 ·min21 were virtually identical. GLP-1 dose dependently stimulated fasting insulin secretion (230 to 0 min) and slightly reduced glucose concentrations. After the meal (0– 240 min), integrated incremental glucose (P , 0.0001) and insulin responses (P 5 0.01) were reduced (dose dependently) rather than enhanced. In conclusion, 1) GLP-1-(7—36) amide or -(7—37) inhibits gastric emptying also in normal subjects, 2) physiological doses (0.4 pmol ·kg21 ·min21) still have a significant effect, 3) despite the known insulinotropic actions of GLP-1-(7—36) amide and -(7—37), the net effect of administering GLP-1 with a meal is no change or a reduction in meal-related insulin responses. These findings suggest a primarily inhibitory function for GLP-1 (ileal brake mechanisms).
Prevention of in Vitro Protein Thermal Aggregation by the Sulfolobus solfataricus Chaperonin

We have studied the effects of the Sulfolobus solfataricus chaperonin on the aggregation and inactivation upon heating of four model enzymes: chicken egg white lysozyme (one 14.4-kDa chain), yeast α-glucosidase (one 68.5-kDa chain), chicken liver malic enzyme (four 65-kDa subunits), and yeast alcohol dehydrogenase (four 37.5-kDa subunits). When the proteins were heated in the presence of an equimolar amount of chaperonin, 1) the aggregation was prevented in all solutions; 2) the inactivation profiles of the single-chain enzymes were comparable with those detected in the absence of the chaperonin, and enzyme activities were regained in the solutions heated in the presence of the chaperonin upon ATP hydrolysis (78 and 55% activity regains for lysozyme and α-glucosidase, respectively); 3) the inactivation of the tetrameric enzymes was completely prevented, whereas the activities decreased in the absence of the chaperonin. We demonstrate by gel filtration chromatography that the chaperonin interacted with the structures occurring during thermal denaturation of the model proteins and that the interaction with the single-chain proteins (but not that with the tetrameric proteins) was reversed upon ATP hydrolysis. The chaperonin had nonequivalent surfaces for the binding of the model proteins upon heating: the thermal denaturation intermediates of the single-chain proteins share Surfaces I, while the thermal denaturation intermediates of the tetrameric proteins share Surfaces II. ATP binding to the chaperonin induced a conformation that lacked Surfaces I and carried Surfaces II. These data support the concept that chaperonins protect native proteins against thermal aggregation by two mechanistically distinct strategies (an ATP-dependent strategy and an ATP-independent strategy), and provide the first evidence that a chaperonin molecule bears functionally specialized surfaces for the binding of the protein substrates.
Aperator: Making Tweets Enable Actionable Commands on Third Party Web Applications

Twitter has become a persistent part of our digital lives, connecting us not only to our individual audiences but also to an entire landscape of applications built for the web. While much has been done to support the Twitter ecosystem outside of Twitter, little has been done within Twitter to power those same applications. This work introduces a service called Aperator, which supports application-specific actionable commands through tweets. This ability creates several interesting opportunities for both end-users and application developers building on the Twitter platform. For example, the actionable command capability allows a link that a Twitter user shares with his followers to be directly added to any of the user's connected link sharing networks, such as Delicious or Read it Later. The client side of this system has a console for end-users to sign up and provide their login credentials for various web services that our system supports: Delicious, Foursquare, Read it Later, Foursquare etc. The system's backend has two cron jobs that run every minute to: (a) retrieve and parse tweets from a specific twitter account and store them in a command form in a MySQL database, and (b) execute the unexecuted commands found in the users tweets. This paper describes the concept, implementation, and results from an experimental study of this new application.
Do calcium waves propagate between cells and synchronize alternating calcium release in rat ventricular myocytes?

• In cell pairs isolated from rat ventricular muscle, spontaneous waves of Ca2+‐induced Ca2+ release are much more likely to propagate between cells connected side to side than end to end. • Investigation of this difference using fluorescence techniques shows that the end‐to‐end connection probably contains the intercalated disc. It is this structure that accounts for the greater distance between sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+ release units being so large (about 2.3 μm). At side‐to‐side connections, this distance is much less (about 1.6 μm). This variation may be the cause of the difference in propagation properties. • In cell pairs isolated from rat ventricular muscle, we have been able to induce systolic Ca2+ alternans in‐phase between the cells in a pair. This is not due to propagation of Ca2+ waves between cells. In some cases, wave propagation can interfere with synchrony.