Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
In TNF-stimulated Cells, RIPK1 Promotes Cell Survival by Stabilizing TRAF2 and cIAP1, which Limits Induction of Non-canonical NF-κB and Activation of Caspase-8*

RIPK1 is involved in signaling from TNF and TLR family receptors. After receptor ligation, RIPK1 not only modulates activation of both canonical and NIK-dependent NF-κB, but also regulates caspase-8 activation and cell death. Although overexpression of RIPK1 can cause caspase-8-dependent cell death, when RIPK1−/− cells are exposed to TNF and low doses of cycloheximide, they die more readily than wild-type cells, indicating RIPK1 has pro-survival as well as pro-apoptotic activities (1, 2). To determine how RIPK1 promotes cell survival, we compared wild-type and RIPK1−/− cells treated with TNF. Although TRAF2 levels remained constant in TNF-treated wild-type cells, TNF stimulation of RIPK1−/− cells caused TRAF2 and cIAP1 to be rapidly degraded by the proteasome, which led to an increase in NIK levels. This resulted in processing of p100 NF-κB2 to p52, a decrease in levels of cFLIPL, and activation of caspase-8, culminating in cell death. Therefore, the pro-survival effect of RIPK1 is mediated by stabilization of TRAF2 and cIAP1.
The Mediation Effect of Trusting Beliefs on the Relationship Between Expectation-Confirmation and Satisfaction with the Usage of Online Product Recommendation

Online Product Recommendations (OPRs) are increasingly available to online customers as a value-added self-service in evaluating and choosing a product. Research has highlighted several advantages that customers can gain from using OPRs. However, the realization of these advantages depends on whether and to what extent customers embrace and fully utilise them. The relatively low OPR usage rate indicates that customers have not yet developed trust in OPRs’ performance. Past studies also have established that satisfaction is a valid measure of system performance and a consistent significant determinant of users’ continuous system usage. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the mediation effect of trusting beliefs on the relationship between expectation-confirmation and satisfaction. The proposed research model is tested using data collected via an online survey from 626 existing users of OPRs. The empirical results revealed that social-psychological beliefs (perceived confirmation and trust) are significant contributors to customer satisfaction with OPRs. Additionally, trusting beliefs partially mediate the impact of perceived confirmation on customer satisfaction. Moreover, this study validates the extensions of the interpersonal trust construct to trust in OPRs and examines the nomological validity of trust in terms of competence, benevolence, and integrity. The findings provide a number of theoretical and practical implications.
The Effect of Social Networks on the Economic Outcomes of a Disadvantaged Group: Evidence from Tribal Affiliations

Minority groups in many countries, particularly indigenous populations, live in very segregated environments. Many social scientists believe that social networks create poverty traps in these types of segregated environments, with a lack of positive role models reinforcing a lack of good job opportunities. In this paper, we use data from the New Zealand Census to examine the relationship between the strength of an individual's local social network and their labor market outcomes. We focus on outcomes for M? ori, which allows us to use tribes as exogenously formed networks, and traditional tribal ties to specific geographical regions as an exogenous shock to the locations of social networks. We thus avoid the typical problem of endogenously formed networks and network locations. We find that M? ori who locate in areas with strong networks have modestly worse labour market outcomes than M? ori from other tribes in the same areas. However, when we account for the endogenous selection of M? ori into high networks areas, we find that they are negatively selected on both observables and unobservables and that social networks have a positive causal impact on employment and total income for women and wage rates for men. These results are consistent with those found in the literature on immigrant enclaves and allude to role that social networks play in improving job match quality.
The Effect of Access and Quality of Education on Economic Development in Botswana

The study investigates whether or not access and quality of education contributes to the development process and economic well being of Botswana by (1) examining the impact of access to education on economic development, (2) establishing the relationship between quality of education and economic development and (3) testing the causal relationship between education and economic development. The study uses time series data from 1980 to 2014 which was analyzed using vector error correction model and vector auto regression approaches to test both long and short run relationships respectively. The paper provides a strong background on the political economy of education in Botswana since independence to date as a departure from our current understanding in literature. Findings show that the level of access to education has a positive and significant effect on the level of economic development; there is bidirectional causality between quality of education and the level of economic development; unidirectional causality moves from economic development to access to education. The study suggests that access to education should be complemented by enhancing more employment creation to forester long term development and private investment in inventory and tangible assets should be enhanced. Attracting more foreign direct investment and maintaining low inflation improves quality of education in the short as they work through enhanced economic development.
Strategic planning in territorial authorities : progress and prospects : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Philosophy in Resource and Environmental Planning at Massey University

Over recent years, territorial councils have had to adapt to changes in their operating environment. Many of these changes have been brought about by legislative requirements, namely the Local Government Amendment Act (1989) and the Resource Management Act (1991) . Other pressures include the increasing demands from central government to adopt more market-driven philosophies and changing expectations of service provision from local communities. A small number of territorial authorities initiated strategic planning exercises in mid-1990. These exercises involved staff. councillors and local communities in what appeared to be relatively significant and distinctive processes, culminating in strategic documents. This research aims to establish whether these strategic planning exercises will be usefal to TAs in their policy and decision-making processes. The research aim was influenced by a number of factors including: the lack of any substantial practical guidance and TA experience in strategic planning, the questionable nature of transferring private business sector experience to local government and the viability of private sector strategic planning in the institutional context of local government. The principal research methods used were grounded on an investigation of the01y related to strategic planning, institutional context of local government, and the role of strategic planning. These aspects of theory were translated into a review of practice of three TAs. Assessments were made of TAs' institutional context, their approach to strategic planning, and their perceived role of strategic planning. These results provided the means for assessing the relationship between institutional context and the role of strategic planning. The research data was collected by conducting interviews with management staff and councillors and reviewing the strategic plans of four TAs The key research findings provide mixed messages in offering a conclusion to the research aim of establishing if strategic planning is usefal to TAs in their decision-making. On one hand, strategic planning used in broad role can be an extremely useful process for improving the quality and implementation of policy decisions. However, to achieve benefits from a broader role of strategic planning, it must be accompanied by a particular institutional context. Adapting the institutional context to facilitate the use of strategic planning presents many challenges, but also highlights many old problems within local government. Strategic planning may simply provide a catalyst to find solutions to some of these old problems.
Hypopigmented mycosis fungoides: report of five cases with ultrastructural observations

Five dark‐skinned individuals presented with widespread well‐demarcated hypopigmented lesions, biopsy of which revealed the histopathological features of mycosis fungoides. Ultrastructural studies showed focal invasion of the epidermis by mycosis cells with degenerative changes in adjacent melanocytes and keratinocytes. The majority of melanocytes exhibited swelling of cytoplasmic organelles and disordered melanogenesis with production of spherical incompletely melanized melanosomes. In addition disintegrating melanocytes were occasionally seen. Perifollicular repigmentation within hypopigmented areas occurred in two patients following clearing of the epidermal infiltrate with PUVA therapy. Mycosis fungoides may present with areas of cutaneous hypopigmentation.
Bilateral and multilateral cooperation in international trade : a political-economy perspective

There is widespread consensus in the literature on trade cooperation that bilateralism is a deficient form of cooperation compared to multilateralism. This consensus is regularly echoed by warnings from policymakers and the media when negotiations in the multilateral GATT/WTO stagnate. This volume puts these warnings about bilateral cooperation into a historical perspective. Its main goal is to shed light on the role of bilateralism and multilateralism in trade cooperation from 1860 to the present. On the basis of a theory-driven empirical analysis, the volume shows that bilateralism plays an important role in promoting liberalization. Bilateralism renders liberal trade politically feasible on the domestic level because it allows political actors to manage the domestic political costs and benefits that arise from economic actors who lose and win by commercial collaboration. However, bilateralism is not without problems. Concerns about domestic distribution create enforcement problems that might result in a halt or even a reversal of liberalization. These enforcement problems can be eliminated through multilateral cooperation. The downside of multilateralism is, however, that it is impossible to control the domestic political effects of trade cooperation. For these reasons, there is no single best form of cooperation and political actors face a dilemma in institutional choice. In the historical perspective, it can be further shown that bilateralism is more frequently chosen for trade liberalization than multilateralism. This finding indicates that bilateral cooperation is less of a threat to liberal trade than the conventional perspective suggests. The volume makes some suggestions about how an appropriately-equipped WTO could render bilateralism a real alternative to multilateralism.
An Investigation into Changes in Income Inequality in St. Lucia (1995-2007) following the Liberalization of International Banana Marketing

A reduction in the in the level of income inequality could be considered one of the factors necessary for sustainable development in the Caribbean, and it has been often suggested that a liberalized trade regime is one of the means to achieve this outcome. This paper reports on an examination of the change in inequality in St. Lucia following the liberalization of international banana marketing using household expenditure survey data (1995 and 2005) and income tax filer data for 1998 and 2007. The non-parametric bootstrap was used to compute Gini coefficients. This method was combined with Davidson’s (2009) method for computing standard errors, to conduct reliable statistical inference on the Gini coefficients to assess the change in inequality, at the national level, between 1995 and 2007. It was concluded that there is evidence of a reduction in income inequality based on significant differences in the Gini coefficient between the two periods for both sets of data. While the quality of the data may preclude a concrete discussion of major policy implications, it can be suggested that the attempt by the government of St. Lucia to mitigate the effect of the loss of employment due to the subsequent contraction of the banana industry may have been effective. Thus, despite the massive exit of the work force from agriculture, other employment opportunities in the construction and service sectors as well as social safety nets such as a farmers pension plan compensated for the anticipated decline in household income due to liberalization of the international banana market. Additionally, government programs undertaken to restructure the competitiveness of the industry may have had a positive impact on income inequality. Further study of the relationship between government programs and income inequality following the liberalization is therefore warranted.
At the Bench: Preclinical rationale for exploiting NK cells and γδ T lymphocytes for the treatment of high‐risk leukemias

NK cells and γδ T lymphocytes display potent cytolytic activity against leukemias and CMV‐infected cells and are thus, promising immune effector cells in the context of allo‐HSCT. NK cells express HLA class I‐specific inhibitory receptors and preferentially kill HLA class Ilow tumors or virus‐infected cells. Killing occurs upon engagement of activating NKRs with ligands that are up‐regulated on tumors and infected cells. A similar activating receptor/ligand interaction strategy is used by γδ T cells, which in addition, use their TCRs for recognition of phosphorylated antigens and still largely undefined ligands on tumor cells. In the haploidentical allo‐HSCT setting, alloreactive NK cells, derived from donor HSCs, can exert potent antileukemia activity and kill residual patient DCs and T cells, thus preventing GvHD and graft rejection. However, generation of KIR+ alloreactive NK cells from HSCs requires many weeks, during which leukemia relapses, and life‐threatening infections may occur. Importantly, mature NK cells and γδ T cells can control certain infectious agents efficiently, in particular, limit CMV reactivation, and infusion of such donor cells at the time of HSCT has been implemented. Development of novel, cell‐based immunotherapies, allowing improved trafficking and better targeting, will endow NK cells and γδ T lymphocytes with enhanced anti‐tumor activity, also making them key reagents for therapies against solid tumors. The clinical aspects of using NK cells and γδ T lymphocytes against hematological malignancies, including the allo‐HSCT context, are reviewed in the related side‐by‐side paper by Locatelli and colleagues [ 1 ].
Zinc binding in bovine milk

Summary About 90% of the Zn in bovine skim milk was sedimented by ultracentrifugation at 100000 g for 1 h. About half of the non-sedimentable Zn was non-dialysable, indicating that it was associated with protein, probably non-sedimented casein micelles. Casein micelles incorporated considerable amounts of Zn added to skim milk as ZnCl2, and at Zn concentrations ≥ 16 mM coagulation of casein micelles occurred. Ca was displaced from casein micelles by increasing ZnCl2 concentration and ˜ 40% of micellar Ca was displaced by 16 mM-ZnCl2. Micellar Zn, Ca and P1 were gradually rendered soluble as the pH of milk was lowered and at pH 4·6 > 95% of the Zn, Ca and P1 were non-sedimentable. These changes were largely reversible by readjustment of the pH to 6·7. About 40% of the total Zn in skim milk was non-sedimentable at 0·2 mM-EDTA and most of the remainder was gradually rendered soluble by EDTA over the concentration range 1–50 mM. This indicates that there are two distinct micellar Zn fractions. No micellar Ca or P1 was solubilized at EDTA concentrations up to 1·0 mM, indicating that both colloidal calcium phosphate (CCP) and casein micelles remained intact under conditions where the more loosely bound micellar Zn fraction dissolved. Depletion of casein micelles of colloidal Ca and P1 by acidification and equilibrium dialysis resulted in removal of Zn, and in colloidal Pi-free milk non-dialysable Zn was reduced to ·-2 mg/1 (˜ 32% of the original Zn). Thus, ˜ 32% of the Zn in skim milk is directly bound to caseins, while ˜ 63% is associated with CCP. Over 80% of the Zn in colloidal Pi-free milk was rendered soluble by 0·2 mM-EDTA, indicating that the casein-bound Zn is the loosely bound Zn fraction in casein micelles. A considerable fraction of the Zn in acid whey (pH 4·6) co-precipitated with Ca and Pi on raising the pH to 6·7 and heating for 2 h at 40 °C, indicating that insoluble Zn phosphate complexes form readily under these conditions. Studies on dialysis of milk against water, or dilution of milk or casein micelles with water, showed that CCP and its associated Zn is very stable and dissolves only very slowly at pH 6·6. The nature of Zn binding in casein micelles may help to explain the lower nutritional bioavailability of Zn in bovine milk and infant formulae compared with human milk.
Effect of artifacts due to flowing blood on the reproducibility of phase‐contrast measurements of myocardial motion

The reproducibility of myocardial motion trajectories calculated from cine phase‐contrast (PC) velocity data is reduced by artifacts due to the inconsistent motion of intracardiac blood. Spatial presaturation reduces these artifacts but requires a longer sequence TR, with a potentially negative effect on trajectory accuracy and reproducibility. We investigated the effect of spatial presaturation on trajectory reproducibility. A midventricular transaxial slice was imaged in five normal volunteers. The same slice was imaged three times each with sequences using spatial presaturation or not. Because the most serious artifacts originate in the heart chambers and propagate in the phase‐encoded direction, myocardial regions that were in line with the heart chambers (in the phase‐encode direction) had the highest artifact level in the scans without spatial presaturation. The reproducibility of trajectories for regions placed in these areas (the anterior wall, septum and posterior wall in the transaxial scans with phase encoding in the anterior‐posterior direction) improved by a factor of two when presaturation was used (P < .001). In areas that were not in line with the heart chambers (eg, the anterior aspect of the lateral wall in the transaxial scans), the effect of presaturation was not significant. These results correlate well with the measured reduction in artifact level. The reproducibility of myocardial motion trajectories over large areas of the heart is improved to approximately 1 mm when presaturation is used. Therefore, use of presaturation is recommended for myocardial motion studies using cine PC velocity data.
Potential Uptake of Escherichia coli O157:H7 from Organic Manure into Crisphead Lettuce

ABSTRACT To investigate the potential transfer of Escherichia coli O157:H7 from contaminated manure to fresh produce, lettuce seedlings were transplanted into soil fertilized with bovine manure which had been inoculated with approximately 104 CFU g−1E. coli O157:H7. The lettuce was grown for approximately 50 days in beds in climate-controlled rooms in a greenhouse. As the bacterium was not detected in the edible parts of the lettuce, the outer leaves of the lettuce, or the lettuce roots at harvest it was concluded that transmission of E. coli O157:H7 from contaminated soil to lettuce did not occur. The pathogen persisted in the soil for at least 8 weeks after fertilizing but was not detected after 12 weeks. Indigenous E. coli was detected only sporadically on the lettuce at harvest, and enterococci were not detected at all. The numbers of enterococci declined more rapidly than those of E. coli in the soil. Pseudomonas fluorescens, which inhibited growth of E. coli O157:H7 in vitro, was isolated from the rhizosphere.
Cyclicality of Fiscal Behavior in Developing Oil-Producing Countries: An Empirical Review

This paper examines the cyclicality of fiscal behavior in 28 developing oil-producing countries (OPCs) during 1990–2009. After testing five fiscal measures—government expenditure, consumption, investment, non-oil revenue, and non-oil primary balance—and correcting for reverse causality between non-oil output and fiscal variables, the results suggest that all of the five fiscal variables are strongly procyclical in the full sample. Also, the results are not uniform across income groups: expenditure is procyclical in the low and middle-income countries, while it is countercyclical in the high-income countries. Fiscal policy tends to be affected by the external financing constraints in the middle- and high-income groups. However, the quality of institutions and political structure appear to be more significant for the low-income group.
Single-phase capacitor clamped inverter with simple structure

A single-phase inverter with capacitor clamped topology is presented to generate a sinusoidal voltage to the critical load. There are two legs in the proposed inverter. One inverter leg is considered of four active switches and one flying capacitor. This inverter leg is operated at high switching frequency to generate three voltage levels on the AC terminal. The other inverter leg is consisted of four active switches without flying capacitor. This inverter leg is operated at low switching frequency to generate two voltage levels on the ac terminal. Therefore, five voltage levels are generated on the ac terminal of the proposed inverter. The control scheme of proposed inverter is easy to implement compared with the conventional capacitor clamped inverter. The control goals of the proposed inverter are generating a sinusoidal output voltage to the critical load and to generate a multilevel PWM voltage waveform on the AC side to reduce the voltage harmonics. The system model and control algorithm are described and analyzed. Experimental results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.
TREK-1 Regulation by Nitric Oxide and cGMP-dependent Protein Kinase

Potassium channels activated by membrane stretch may contribute to maintenance of relaxation of smooth muscle cells in visceral hollow organs. Previous work has identified K+ channels in murine colon that are activated by stretch and further regulated by NO-dependent mechanisms. We have screened murine gastrointestinal, vascular, bladder, and uterine smooth muscles for the expression of TREK and TRAAK mRNA. Although TREK-1 was expressed in many of these smooth muscles, TREK-2 was expressed only in murine antrum and pulmonary artery. TRAAK was not expressed in any smooth muscle cells tested. Whole cell currents from TREK-1 expressed in mammalian COS cells were activated by stretch, and single channel recordings showed that the stretch-dependent conductance was due to 90 pS channels. Sodium nitroprusside (10−6 or 10−5 m) and 8-Br-cGMP (10−4 or 10−3 m) increased TREK-1 currents in perforated whole cell and single channel recordings. Mutation of the PKG consensus sequence at serine 351 blocked the stimulatory effects of sodium nitroprusside and 8-Br-cGMP on open probability without affecting the inhibitory effects of 8-Br-cAMP. TREK-1 encodes a component of the stretch-activated K+ conductance in smooth muscles and may contribute to nitrergic inhibition of gastrointestinal muscles.