Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Disclosure in Regulatory Science

The leading biomedical journals have established policies that attempt to ensure their published articles are transparent to commercial bias. Federal regulatory agencies, charged with protecting the public9s health and environment, have no similar conflict-of-interest requirements. The authors of this Policy Forum urge that private parties who submit scientific studies for consideration by government agencies should be required to disclose conflicts of interest that might bias their work. They should also be required to disclose whether the data were produced by scientists who had the contractual right to publish their findings without influence and without obtaining consent of the sponsor.
Collaborative Supply Chain Planning

Durch Collaborative Supply Chain Planning wird insbesondere eine Verbesserung der Kostensituation sowie eine Erhöhung des Servicegrads in einem Produktionsund Logistiknetzwerk bei einer Beteiligung mehrerer Unternehmungen angestrebt. Im Rahmen des vorliegenden Beitrags wird das Collaborative Supply Chain Planning anhand von fünf Merkmalen begrifflich abgegrenzt. Weiterhin werden die Aufgaben auf der strategischen, taktischen und operativen Ebene sowie unterschiedliche Vorgehensweisen für den erforderlichen intensiven Datenaustausch vorgestellt.
Economic Hardship and Educational Differentials in Disability in 26 European Countries

Objective: The objective of this article is to study to what extent European variations in differentials in disability by education level are associated to variation in poverty. Method: Using the European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) for 26 countries, we measure the prevalence of activity limitation (AL) and the rate of economic hardship (EH) by level of education. We measure the increased AL prevalence (disadvantage) of the low-educated relative to the middle-educated and the reduced AL prevalence (advantage) of the high-educated groups, controlling or not for EH. Results: The rate of EH and the extent of the AL-advantage/disadvantage vary substantially across Europe. EH contributes to the AL-advantage/disadvantage but to different extent depending on its level across educational groups. Discussion: Associations between poverty, education, and disability are complex. In general, large EH goes along with increased disability differentials. Actions to reduce poverty are needed in Europe to reduce the levels and differentials in disability.
Market Mavens' Attitudes Towards General Technology: Implications for Marketing Communications

Market mavens may become more important marketplace influencers, mainly due to their potential for helping other consumers deal with numerous product choices and to the growing acceptance of new technologies (e.g. the World Wide Web) as viable means for consumers to communicate with many other consumers. To date research has not provided a clear demographic profile of mavens and psychographical research concerning mavens has been lacking. This article examines attitudes towards general technology and several personality traits in order to determine whether they are related to mavenism. The findings indicate that affinity for technology is positively related to market mavens. Dispositional optimism, need for cognition and self‐efficacy are also positively associated with both mavenism and affinity for technology. Marketing communications implications and future research directions are discussed.
A Comparison of Budesonide/Formoterol Maintenance and Reliever Therapy Versus Conventional Best Practice in Asthma Management in Spain

Objective. To study the effectiveness and safety in a real-life setting of budesonide/formoterol (Symbicort) Maintenance And Reliever Therapy® (Symbicort SMART®), a simplified management approach with one inhaler, compared with conventional best practice (CBP) with multiple inhalers in patients with persistent asthma. Design. Open-label randomized controlled parallel-group trial, 6-month treatment. Participants. A total of 654 adult patients, with persistent asthma receiving treatment with inhaled corticosteroids (ICS), either alone or in conjunction with long-acting β2-agonist. Main outcome measures. Time to first severe asthma exacerbation and number of severe asthma exacerbations. Results. No difference between groups was seen in time to first severe exacerbation (p = .2974). Exacerbation rates were low in both groups. A total of 22 patients in the Symbicort SMART group experienced a total of 24 severe asthma exacerbations, and 31 patients in the CBP group experienced a total of 34 severe asthma exacerbations (annual rate 0.16 vs. 0.22, p = .2869). The mean daily dose of ICS expressed in beclomethasone dipropionate equivalent was significantly lower in the Symbicort SMART group (including as-needed use) versus the CBP group (799 μg vs.1184 μg; p < .001). Mean scores in Asthma Control Questionnaire, five-question version, improved significantly in the SMART group compared with the CBP group (p = .0292). Symbicort SMART and CBP were equally well tolerated. The mean drug cost per patient per 6 months was lower for the patients in the SMART group compared with patients receiving CBP (€295.32 vs. €387.98, p < .0001). Conclusions. A simplified regimen using budesonide/formoterol maintenance and reliever therapy (Symbicort SMART) was at least as effective at improving clinical control compared with CBP with a significantly lower ICS dose and lower drug costs.
Promoting sustainable consumption: Determinants of green purchases by Swiss consumers

Given that overconsumption in industrial countries is a main cause of environmental degradation, a shift toward more sustainable consumption patterns is required. This study attempts to uncover personal and contextual barriers to consumers' purchases of green food and to strengthen knowledge about fostering green purchases. Survey data are used to examine the influence of distinct categories of personal factors (such as attitudes, personal norms, perceived behavior barriers, knowledge) and contextual factors (such as socioeconomic characteristics, living conditions, and store characteristics) on green purchases of Swiss consumers. Results from regression analysis suggest that green food purchases are facilitated by positive attitudes of consumers toward (a) environmental protection, (b) fair trade, (c) local products, and (d) availability of action-related knowledge. In turn, green behavior is negatively associated with (e) perceived time barriers and (f) frequency of shopping in supermarkets. Surprisingly, green purchases are not significantly related to moral thinking, monetary barriers, or the socioeconomic characteristics of the consumers. Implications for policy makers and for companies and marketers engaged in the promotion and commercialization of green products are discussed. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Channel collaboration and firm value proposition

In recent years, “efficient consumer response” has replaced prior management fads and rules of the competitive landscape in the field of grocery trade. This initiative thrives on creating value for the final customers through an efficient supply chain value system, and simultaneously appropriate value for the channel members involved. However, much of the evidence to date remains anecdotal, and thus, the channel collaboration – value conduct reminds a “black box”. We adopt a capabilities view and a contingency framework is proposed to test the postulated relationships between the key constructs by deploying multi‐country data. Our results indicate a strong positive association between channel collaboration and firm value proposition, and further that the relationship has a contingency specific profile. In managerial terms, business executives must carefully design a match between the strategic channel posture the firm possesses and its value creating and appropriating capability profile in managing collaborative channel relationships.
On-line current sensing circuit for the over-current protection of the electronic ballast

A new on-chip current sensing circuit for the over-current protection of the electronic ballast is presented in this paper. The proposed scheme increases the sense accuracy and noise immunity over the full temperature range of the devices and can avoid fault over-current protection. Simulation results verify the accuracy of the on-chip current sensing circuit.
A PERSIAN FUZZY PLAGIARISM DETECTION APPROACH

Plagiarism is one of the common problems that is present in all organizations that deal with electronic content. At present, plagiarism detection tools, only detect word by word or exact copy phrases and paraphrasing is often mixed. One of the successful and applicable methods in paraphrasing detection is fuzzy method. In this study, a new fuzzy approach has been proposed to detect external plagiarism in Persian texts which is called Persian Fuzzy Plagiarism Detection (PFPD). The proposed approach compares paraphrased texts with the aim to recognize text similarities. External plagiarism detection, evaluates through a comparison between query document and a document collection. To avoid un-necessary comparisons this tool employs intelligent technology for comparing, suspicious documents, in different levels hierarchically. This method intends to conformed Fuzzy model to Persian language and improves previous methods to evaluate similarity degree between two sentences. Experiments on three corpora TMC, Irandoc and extracted corpus from prozhe.com, are performed to get confidence on proposed method performance. The obtained results showed that using proposed method in candidate documents retrieval, and in evaluating text similarity, increases the precision, recall and F measurement in comparing with one of the best previous fuzzy methods, respectively 22.41, 17.61, and 18.54 percent on the average.
The ups and downs of thyrotropin-releasing hormone.

The synthesis and secretion of thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) is absolutely required for intact thyroid function in humans and rodents. Furthermore, feedback regulation of TRH production by thyroid hormone allows for tight maintenance of circulating thyroid hormone levels and thus establishes the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid (H-P-T) axis. Although the TRH gene is expressed in many regions of the brain, its regulation by thyroid hormone is restricted to neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVH) (1). This discrete set of neurons in the PVH, termed hypophysiotropic, project to the median eminence where mature TRH peptide is released into the portal capillary system bound for TRH-receptors present in the anterior pituitary (Fig. 1​1). ). Whereas it is clear that thyroid hormone regulates TRH production in the PVH both at the level of gene expression and posttranslational processing, in this issue of Endocrinology, Sanchez et al. (2) provide evidence that thyroid hormone also controls TRH peptide degradation by regulating the enzyme pyroglutamyl peptidase II (PPII). This enzyme is expressed in tanycytes; glial cells that line the third ventricle in the hypothalamus whose cytoplasmic processes extend into the median eminence. Thus, PPII appears to regulate TRH peptide bioavailability upstream of the pituitary.
Joint ventures and competitive strategy

A framework for using joint ventures (and other forms of cooperative strategy) within varying competitive environments is constructed, and hypotheses are developed concerning the impact of particular industry traits upon firms' options in pursuing them. Industry examples illustrate the framework's hypotheses. In this framework, demand traits suggest what types of cooperative strategies are needed. Competitor traits suggest how firms will respond to these needs for cooperation. Since joint ventures can be inherently unstable organizational forms, it is important for managers to (1) select the right cooperative strategy option and (2) modify the autonomy from (and coordination with) sponsoring firms that ventures enjoy as their industry structures evolve. Familiarity with cooperative strategy options is important because (1) as growth slows, (2) as markets shrink or become crowded, (3) as industries become global, or (4) as technological change accelerates to speeds where individual firms cannot recover their initial investments, managers will have less margin for error. If managers do not learn how to use cooperative strategies advantageously their firms may encounter difficulties in delivering adequate value to their customers, replenishing their base of skills, and/or safeguarding their abilities to increase long‐term shareholder value.
Delta‐like 4‐mediated Notch signaling is required for early T‐cell development in a three‐dimensional thymic structure

Delta‐like 4 (Dll4)‐mediated Notch signaling is critical for specifying T‐cell fate, but how Dll4‐mediated Notch signaling actually contributes to T‐cell development in the thymus remains unclear. To explore this mechanism in the thymic three‐dimensional structure, we performed fetal thymus organ culture using Dll4‐deficient mice. DN1a/b+DN2mt cells, which had not yet committed to either the αβ T or γδ T/NK cell lineage, did not differentiate into the αβ T‐cell lineage in Dll4‐deficient thymus despite the lack of cell fate conversion into other lineages. However, DN3 cells efficiently differentiated into a later developmental stage of αβ T cells, the double‐positive (DP) stage, although the proliferation was significantly impaired during the differentiation process. These findings suggest that the requirement for Notch signaling differs between the earliest and pre‐TCR‐bearing precursors and that continued Notch signaling is required for proper differentiation with active proliferation of αβ T lineage cells. Furthermore, we showed that Notch signaling increased the c‐Myc expression in DN3 cells in the thymus and that its overexpression rescued the proliferation and differentiation of DN3 cells in the Dll4‐null thymus. Therefore, c‐Myc plays a central role in the transition from stage DN3 to DP as a downstream target of Notch signaling.
Sustainable Value for the Sustainability Evaluation of Corporate: Focused on Evaluation based on Sustainability Report

This research proposes a new approach to measure corporate contributions to sustainability called Sustainable Value. With some global corporations which recognize the seriousness of environmental crisis and their social responsibility, enterprises are positively accepting the sustainable management. Also, publication of the sustainability report is proliferating which is showing the enterprise`s strategy, activity, result and influence in environmental, economic, social cases to the stakeholder. However, to settle and proliferate this current, it rests with how to evaluate enterprises sustainability in reasonable and reliable figure. In this context, what introduced and taking effects are sustainability report evaluation and awarding system. But the quality of sun stainability report and its content`s depth and the evaluation of enterprise`s sustainability itself should be distinguished. Because the enterprise which published excellent graded sustainability report is not always the enterprise that is sustainable. Then, how could we prove the result of enterprise`s sustainable management based on sustainability report? This paper is to find the answer and to utilize it based on sustainability report, particularly sustainable value model as the central figure.
Importance of Basic Residues in Binding of Rous Sarcoma Virus Nucleocapsid to the RNA Packaging Signal

ABSTRACT In the context of the Rous sarcoma virus Gag polyprotein, only the nucleocapsid (NC) domain is required to mediate the specificity of genomic RNA packaging. We have previously showed that the Saccharomyces cerevisiae three-hybrid system provides a rapid genetic assay to analyze the RNA and protein components of the avian retroviral RNA-Gag interactions necessary for specific encapsidation. In this study, using both site-directed mutagenesis and in vivo random screening in the yeast three-hybrid binding assay, we have examined the amino acids in NC required for genomic RNA binding. We found that we could delete either of the two Cys-His boxes without greatly abrogating either RNA binding or packaging, although the two Cys-His boxes are likely to be required for efficient viral assembly and release. In contrast, substitutions for the Zn-coordinating residues within the boxes did prevent RNA binding, suggesting changes in the overall conformation of the protein. In the basic region between the two Cys-His boxes, three positively charged residues, as well as basic residues flanking the two boxes, were necessary for both binding and packaging. Our results suggest that the stretches of positively charged residues within NC that need to be in a proper conformation appear to be responsible for selective recognition and binding to the packaging signal (Ψ)-containing RNAs.
Epilepsy: comorbidity in the elderly

Elderly people experience the highest incidence of epilepsy and their clinical mananagement is often challenging, due to a potential increase in the likelihood of adverse treatment events. In addition, concomitant diseases are highly prevalent in this population and elderly patients are likely to be prescribed a number of medications that must be taken concurrently. As a result, the incidence of adverse drug–drug interactions and adverse drug reactions is also extremely high. Thus, the treatment of elderly patients with epilepsy requires careful consideration of any comorbid conditions and concomitant medications. Most adverse events are drug‐related and are therefore preventable. It is important to consider these complications when prescribing antiepileptic drug (AED) treatment. An AED with broad‐spectrum efficacy, good tolerability and a favourable drug interaction profile (e.g. valproate, gabapentin and lamotrigine) may prevent many unwanted drug interactions and side effects.
Altered Pattern of Immunoglobulin Hypermutation in Mice Deficient in Slip-GC Protein*

Background: SLIP-GC is a novel GTPase expressed in germinal center B cells that localizes to sites of DNA replication. Results: B cells from SLIP-GC-deficient mice displayed increased G:C transitions at immunoglobulin and non-immunoglobulin loci. Conclusion: SLIP-GC may protect activated B cells from AID-mediated deamination of cytosines. Significance: SLIP-GC is a novel molecule involved in the prevention or repair of G:C transitions in activated B cells. We recently identified a novel germinal center GTPase, SLIP-GC, that localizes to replication factories in B cells and that, when reduced, induces DNA breaks in lymphoma B cell lines in an activation-induced deaminase (AID)-dependent manner. Herein, we generated mice deficient in SLIP-GC and examined the impact of SLIP-GC deficiency in immunoglobulin hypermutation and class switch recombination, both AID-dependent mechanisms. SLIP-GC-deficient mice experienced a substantial increase in mutations at G:C base pairs at the region downstream of JH4 in the immunoglobulin heavy chain locus. This change was reflected in the overall mutation frequency, and it was associated with an increase in transitions from G:C base pairs, a hallmark of AID-mediated deamination during replication. In addition, G:C transitions at non-immunoglobulin loci also increased in these mice. Given the intracellular localization of SLIP-GC to sites of replicating DNA, these results suggest that SLIP-GC protects replicating DNA from AID-mediated deamination of cytosines in both strands.
An Evaluation of Internship Programme in Improving Graduate Skills and Marketability Among Arabic Language students in IIUM from the Perspective of Malaysian Job Market

The requirement of employability in the job market initiated universities to conduct internship training as part of study plan. There is a need to train the students with the important knowledge and skills related to the workplace and their gained knowledge. This study attempts to investigate the performance of internship training programme in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature, at International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). Methodologically, this study was conducted to congregate the opinions and experience about internship programme among Arabic language and literature students. The participants were purposively selected from 57 students who have completed their three months internship either in the public or private sector from June to September 2015 by using an online survey and open-ended questionnaires. General findings from this study show that internship training has essentially improved their soft skills and increased their work-place literacy and well-being. Despite the poor perception of Arabic language in the mutual graduate employability as well as its practicality aspects and job market by the industry, Arabic language and literature students are well accepted in both private and public sectors to undertake their internship training as reported in this paper. In conclusion, internship training is crucial, particularly among Arabic language and literature students as it enriches their experiences, knowledge and skills both in the personal and social life. It also increased their level of confidence to explore their future opportunity in the Malaysian job market including setting up their own businesses through entrepreneurship knowledge and skill.
Managerial Ownership Effects on Cash Holdings: The Case of Private Family Firms

This paper focuses on the effect of managerial ownership on cash holdings in a sample of private family firms. Our results suggest that managerial ownership has a significant impact on cash holdings. Cash holdings are largest in the firms with no managerial ownership and lowest in the firms in which ownership and management fully coincide. However, low leverage seems to increase the need for cash holdings even in the firms in which ownership and management fully coincide. We also find weaker evidence on a nonlinear effect on cash holdings at intermediate levels of managerial stock holdings.
Sliding mode control design with a class of piecewise smooth switching surfaces

In order to achieve more flexibility, a new design method is proposed to construct the switching surface of sliding mode control. We first prove that the available switching surface is not unique for the fixed reaching phase design. A new switching surface is developed by the combination of these available switching surfaces. Unlike typical sliding mode control design, the new switching surface is continuous, in other words, piecewise smooth. Furthermore, a method is provided to obtain the sliding motion on the non-smooth region of the switching surface, where a high-dimensional cross product is introduced to calculate the direction of the trajectories on the smooth half surfaces with respect to the non-smooth regions. Based on this method, we show that the sliding motion is still smooth on the non-smooth switching surface.