Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Methanogens rapidly transition from methane production to iron reduction

Methanogenesis, the microbial methane (CH4) production, is traditionally thought to anchor the mineralization of organic matter as the ultimate respiratory process in deep sediments, despite the presence of oxidized mineral phases, such as iron oxides. This process is carried out by archaea that have also been shown to be capable of reducing iron in high levels of electron donors such as hydrogen. The current pure culture study demonstrates that methanogenic archaea (Methanosarcina barkeri) rapidly switch from methanogenesis to iron‐oxide reduction close to natural conditions, with nitrogen atmosphere, even when faced with substrate limitations. Intensive, biotic iron reduction was observed following the addition of poorly crystalline ferrihydrite and complex organic matter and was accompanied by inhibition of methane production. The reaction rate of this process was of the first order and was dependent only on the initial iron concentrations. Ferrous iron production did not accelerate significantly with the addition of 9,10‐anthraquinone‐2,6‐disulfonate (AQDS) but increased by 11–28% with the addition of phenazine‐1‐carboxylate (PCA), suggesting the possible role of methanophenazines in the electron transport. The coupling between ferrous iron and methane production has important global implications. The rapid transition from methanogenesis to reduction of iron–oxides close to the natural conditions in sediments may help to explain the globally‐distributed phenomena of increasing ferrous concentrations below the traditional iron reduction zone in the deep ‘methanogenic’ sediment horizon, with implications for metabolic networking in these subsurface ecosystems and in past geological settings.
Clonal Origin of Multiple Lung Cancers: K‐ras and p53 Mutations Determined by Nonradioisotopic Single‐strand Conformation Polymorphism Analysis

Disease stage is the most important factor in determining prognosis and treatment of lung cancer. Staging of lung cancer is complicated by presentation of multiple pulmonary malignant lesions with a similar histology. It is a dilemma to decide if these lesions are synchronous primaries arising from different malignant clones or metastases from a single clone. Lung cancer is associated with multiple genetic abnormalities including mutations of K-ras and p53, which are believed to occur prior to onset of metastasis. To determine the clonal origin of multiple pulmonary malginant nodules, we analyzed pointmutations of K-ras and p53 by microdissection, polymerase chain reactions (PCR), nonradioisotopic single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis, and DNA sequencing. Each pulmonary lesion was microdissected from paraffin slides. Genomic DNA was amplified by two sequential PCRs followed by electrophoresis in a minigel and silver staining. Deoxyribonucleic acid sequencing was performed if necessary to confirm a mutation found upon SSCP analysis. Applying this molecular approach, we were able to differentiate the clonal origins of multiple malignant nodules of the lung as exemplified by the two cases presented.
China Is Big News! ? International Media Relations by Multinational Enterprises in China

In the build-up to the Beijing 2008 Olympics, the role of international media reporting from China is becoming widely apparent. Increasing media reports from China since its admission to the WTO in 2001 are both a threat and an opportunity for multinational enterprises (MNEs) on location. Their China activities are frequently in the spotlight of the international media. This paper aims at understanding the significance, dimensions and basic concepts of media relations with the international media in China from the perspective of multinational enterprises based in the People’s Republic. It investigates whether and why China’s relations with the international media differ from those of other countries, taking into account the media relations research and local market particularities while exploring best practices amongst ten MNEs in case studies. Many media relations concepts applied elsewhere could also be validated for the Chinese market. The need for a strategy in international media relations for China has emerged as one of the key findings.
Increased lipogenesis in cancer cells: new players, novel targets

Purpose of reviewThis review evaluates recent findings on the mechanisms by which lipogenic enzymes are upregulated or activated in cancer cells, the implications of increased lipogenesis for cancer cell biology and the feasibility of exploiting this pathway and its regulators as targets for antineoplastic intervention. Recent findingsThe list of cancer types showing increased lipogenic enzyme expression keeps growing and further evidence is accumulating that growth factor signaling and particularly activation of the phosphatidylinositol 3′-kinase/protein kinase B pathway plays a role in this process. This signaling pathway stimulates lipogenic gene transcription through activation of the lipogenic transcription factor sterol regulatory element-binding protein-1 and directly activates lipogenic enzymes such as ATP-citrate lyase, linking the upregulation of lipogenesis in cancer cells to the well known tumor-associated increase in glycolysis. Steroid hormones, overexpression of the ubiquitin-specific protease-2a and mutations in breast cancer susceptibility gene 1 may further enhance lipid synthesis. While fatty acid synthase is further established as a target for antineoplastic intervention, recent findings show that interference with acetyl-CoA carboxylase-α, ATP citrate lyase or the AMP-activated protein kinase limits cancer cell proliferation and survival. SummaryThe same disturbances in signaling pathways responsible for oncogenic transformation may also contribute to the increased lipogenesis observed in tumor cells. Increased lipogenesis involves modulation of multiple lipogenic enzymes at both transcriptional and posttranscriptional level and is linked to other cancer-associated metabolic changes. Not only fatty acid synthase, but in fact all key enzymes involved in fatty acid synthesis as well as key metabolic regulators are potential targets for antineoplastic intervention.
Homology dependence of targeted recombination at the Chinese hamster APRT locus

Using simple linear fragments of the Chinese hamster adenine phosphoribosyltransferase (APRT) gene as targeting vectors, we have investigated the homology dependence of targeted recombination at the endogenous APRT locus in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. We have examined the effects of varying either the overall length of targeting sequence homology or the length of 5' or 3' flanking homology on both the frequency of targeted homologous recombination and the types of recombination events that are obtained. We find an exponential (logarithmic) relationship between length of APRT targeting homology and the frequency of targeted recombination at the CHO APRT locus, with the frequency of targeted recombination dependent upon both the overall length of targeting homology and the length of homology flanking each side of the target gene deletion. Although most of the APRT+ recombinants analyzed reflect simple targeted replacement or conversion of the target gene deletion, a significant fraction appear to have arisen by target gene-templated extension and correction of the targeting fragment sequences. APRT fragments with limited targeting homology flanking one side of the target gene deletion yield proportionately fewer target gene conversion events and proportionately more templated extension and vector correction events than do fragments with more substantial flanking homology.
Fuzzy Learning of Co-Similarities from Large-Scale Documents

To analyze and explore large textual corpus, we are generally limited by the available main memory. This may lead to a proliferation of processor load due to greedy computing. The authors propose to deal with this problem to compute co-similarities from large-scale documents. The authors propose to enhance co-similarity learning by upstream and downstream parallel computing. The first deploys the fuzzy linear model in a Grid environment. The second deals with multi-view datasets while introducing different architectures by using several instances of a fuzzy triadic similarity algorithm.
Paradigm Shift of Customer Satisfaction Studies in Service Research: A Meta-analytical Review of the Antecedents of Service Satisfaction

Conceptual literature review and empirical generalization by using meta-analysis method are done to get a whole picture of service satisfaction antecedent studies. It is found that three main paradigms, including expectation disconfirmation, service quality and service value are used to explain the antecedents of customer satisfaction in service research history. A paradigm shift can be seen along these three paradigms, and the domain of service satisfaction antecedents is found to be expanding gradually. However, meta-analysis results show that disconfirmation, the most parsimonious paradigm, achieves the strongest relationship strength with customer satisfaction in service industries. Therefore, disconfirmation paradigm is recommended to measure or monitor customer satisfaction, whereas service quality paradigm and service are recommended when service providers want to improve customer satisfaction since they need to know from which concrete aspects, satisfaction can be enhanced.
The Fibrinogen Receptor FbsA Promotes Adherence of Streptococcus agalactiae to Human Epithelial Cells

ABSTRACT Streptococcus agalactiae is a major cause of bacterial pneumonia, sepsis, and meningitis in human neonates. During the course of infection, S. agalactiae adheres to a variety of epithelial cells but the underlying mechanisms are only poorly understood. The present report demonstrates the importance of the fibrinogen receptor FbsA for the streptococcal adherence and invasion of epithelial cells. Deletion of the fbsA gene in various S. agalactiae strains substantially reduced their binding of soluble fibrinogen and their adherence to and invasion of epithelial cells, indicating a role of FbsA in these different processes. The adherence and invasiveness of an fbsA deletion mutant were partially restored by reintroducing the fbsA gene on an expression vector. Heterologous expression of fbsA in Lactococcus lactis enabled this bacterium to adhere to but not to invade epithelial cells, suggesting that FbsA is a streptococcal adhesin. Flow cytometry experiments revealed a dose-dependent binding of FbsA to the surface of epithelial cells. Furthermore, tissue culture experiments exhibited an intimate contact of FbsA-coated latex beads with the surfaces of human epithelial cells. Finally, host cell adherence and invasion were significantly blocked in competition experiments with either purified FbsA protein or a monoclonal antibody directed against the fibrinogen-binding epitope of FbsA. Taken together, our studies demonstrate that FbsA promotes the adherence of S. agalactiae to epithelial cells but that FbsA does not mediate the bacterial invasion into host cells. Our results also indicate that fibrinogen-binding epitopes within FbsA are involved in the adherence of S. agalactiae to epithelial cells.
On Cyberslacking: Workplace Status and Personal Internet Use at Work

Is personal Internet use at work primarily the domain of lower-status employees, or do individuals higher up the organizational hierarchy engage in this activity at equal or even greater levels? We posit that higher workplace status is associated with significant incentives and greater opportunities for personal Internet use. We test this hypothesis using data collected via a recent national telephone survey (n = 1,024). Regression analyses demonstrate that, contrary to conventional wisdom, higher-status employees, as measured by occupation status, job autonomy, income, education, and gender, engage in significantly more frequent personal Internet use at work.
Delineating the outcomes of sponsorship

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose a model in which fans' team attachment is the determinant of three sponsorship outcomes: sponsor image, purchase intentions, and word of mouth. Furthermore, following the sponsorship literature, the role of sport fans' involvement on the development of team attachment was examined.Design/methodology/approach – Questionnaires were collected from fans of a professional basketball team in Greece (n=354). Structural equation modeling was employed in order to test the model fit and estimate the model coefficients.Findings – The findings supported the premise that highly attached fans are more likely to develop positive image for their team sponsor, exhibit higher intentions for purchasing and recommending the sponsor's products.Research limitations/implications – The proposed model on sport sponsorship outcomes was supported. The results of the study contribute to our understanding of the role of team attachment and sponsor image in predicting sponsorship outco.
Two Stages Based Adaptive Sampling Boosting Method

To improve learning performance of boosting method, boosting learning procedure is divided into two sequential stages which are named reducing fitting error stage and reducing variance stage according to the idea of generalization error of boosting method composed of bias and variance which was originally proposed by Breiman. Traditional sampling methods such as roulette wheel selection is suitable for the learning procedure of reducing fitting error stage, and based on the characteristics of reducing variance stage, a new sampling method is proposed named SS method. Based on CSP and SS sampling methods, a new two stages based adaptive sampling boosting method named ASSBoosting is proposed, which according to the different characteristics of the two learning stages adaptively adopts sampling methods by the comparison of the prediction error caused by the two methods. The results of simulation confirm these findings
Corporate Finance Strategy Via Tunisian Venture Capital Organisms

The present research work is designed to examine the Tunisian corporate case financing strategy as undertaken by the venture capital institutions, on the basis of some criteria applied during the selection process. After discussing the theoretical relationship between the venture capitalist and the entrepreneur, we are advancing an empirical model testing the influence of the venture capitalist’ selection criteria on the acceptance to finance the enterprise. Overall, the study’s reached finding, as conducted on a sample of 41 venture capital companies operating up until the end of the year 2016. In fact, the study have revealed well the significantly impact of certain adopted criteria in relation to the other criteria and it maintains that the venture capitalist’ attitude towards the investment risk.
Unbiased simulation of stochastic differential equations

We propose an unbiased Monte-Carlo estimator for $\mathbb{E}[g(X_{t_1}, \cdots, X_{t_n})]$, where $X$ is a diffusion process defined by a multi-dimensional stochastic differential equation (SDE). The main idea is to start instead from a well-chosen simulatable SDE whose coefficients are updated at independent exponential times. Such a simulatable process can be viewed as a regime-switching SDE, or as a branching diffusion process with one single living particle at all times. In order to compensate for the change of the coefficients of the SDE, our main representation result relies on the automatic differentiation technique induced by Bismu-Elworthy-Li formula from Malliavin calculus, as exploited by Fourni\'e et al.(1999) for the simulation of the Greeks in financial applications. In particular, this algorithm can be considered as a variation of the (infinite variance) estimator obtained in Bally and Kohatsu-Higa [Section 6.1](2014) as an application of the parametrix method.
Why do we need Enterprise Ontology in E-Commerce ?

Business Ontology can enable the successful development of enterprises system. This is being achieved through knowledge sharing and the ease of communication between every entity in the organization. There are many researches that focus on the construction of business ontology. Most of these studies try to develop a general ontology for every business in the world. However, the practice of the theory of business ontology in real business is quite a few especially in the field of e-commerce. In this research, we will try to apply some of these theoretical concepts and methodology of IDEF 5 and Ontolingua to develop a tangible ontology for a small business on the net.
Revisiting the Competitiveness of Romanian Manufacturing Industry

Since the early 1990s the Romanian manufacturing industry has improved in many ways. This headway concerns the labour-intensive sector rather than the technology-intensive one. Apart from local entrepreneurship, foreign direct investments (FDI) have been instrumental in enhancing industrial competitiveness. The Lisbon Agenda revival and Romania’s EU accession will be further inducements for Western businesses to shift production here to fight back both low-cost producers (typically from emerging Asia) and more quality-oriented producers (typically from OECD countries). Hopefully, the FDI spillover effects will send positive vibrations across the economy, and tone down the asymmetry at the core of the manufacturing industry.
Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans Serotype b Lipopolysaccharide Mediates Coaggregation with Fusobacterium nucleatum

ABSTRACT Purified Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans serotype b lipopolysaccharide (LPS) was found to be able to bind Fusobacterium nucleatum cells and to inhibit binding of F. nucleatum to A. actinomycetemcomitans serotype b. Sugar binding studies showed that the requirements for binding of A. actinomycetemcomitans serotype b LPS to the F. nucleatum lectin are the presence of a metal divalent ion, an axial free hydroxyl group at position 4, and free equatorial hydroxyl groups at positions 3 and 6 of d-galactose, indicating that the β-N-acetyl-d-galactosamine in the serotype b LPS trisaccharide repeating unit is the monosaccharide residue recognized by the F. nucleatum lectin. These data strongly suggest that A. actinomycetemcomitans serotype b LPS is one of the receptors responsible for the lactose-inhibitable coaggregation of A. actinomycetemcomitans to fusobacteria.
Trends of male factor infertility, an important cause of infertility: A review of literature

Infertility and problems of impaired fecundity have been a concern through ages and is also a significant clinical problem today, which affects 8-12% of couples worldwide. Of all infertility cases, approximately 40-50% is due to "male factor" infertility and as many as 2% of all men will exhibit suboptimal sperm parameters. It may be one or a combination of low sperm concentration, poor sperm motility, or abnormal morphology. The rates of infertility in less industrialized nations are markedly higher and infectious diseases are responsible for a greater proportion of infertility. The present literature will help in knowing the trends of male factor infertility in developing nations like India and to find out in future, various factors that may be responsible for male infertility.
A survey of trust, control and information in networks

This paper focuses on which characteristics managers take into account when they choose and evaluate business partners, and the interrelationship between the constructs trust, control and information. The paper is based on a survey which includes 101 small and middle-sized manufacturing companies in Denmark. The results show that managers frequently express that trust is an important aspect of a good relationship. Also product-related attributes and relational attributes have a bearing in a network setting. On the other hand, no significant correlation between neither trust and control nor trust and information is found. The findings indicate that the three constructs are relevant, and the level of embeddedness is found to influence both the absolute and the relative importance of the three constructs, and thereby the role of management accounting at different development stages of relationships
Database tuning principles, experiments, and troubleshooting techniques

As our reliance on computers and computerized data has increased, we have come to expect more from our computers. We no longer expect our computers to act as large expensive calculators that merely spit out bills and paychecks. We now, additionally, expect our systems to rapidly access and interactively present us with large volumes of accurate data. In fact, our expectations have changed so much, in the past decade, that we no longer focus on what our systems are but rather on what they do. We no longer refer to our systems as computer systems but rather information systems. With these new expectations have come new responsibilities for the information systems professional. We can no longer concern ourselves merely with keeping our systems up and running. We now need to concern ourselves with subjective concepts such as response time and throughput. With current expectations what they are, performance tuning has become vitally important.
Interactions between PEG and type I soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor: Modulation by pH and by PEGylation at the N terminus

The effects of polyethylene glycol (PEG) on protein structure and the molecular details that regulate its association to polypeptides are largely unknown. These issues were addressed using type I soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor (sTNF‐RI) as a model system. Changes in solution viscosity established that a truncated form of sTNF‐RI bound free PEG in a pH‐dependent manner. Above pH 5.3, the viscosity escalated as the pH increased, while no effect occurred below pH 5.0. Conjugation of 2 kD, 5 kD, or 20 kD PEG to the N terminus attenuated the viscosity at the higher pH values. Tryptophan phosphorescence spectroscopy correlated changes in the protein structure about Trp‐107, at the C terminus, with the pH‐dependent and PEGylation‐dependent attenuation of the viscosity. The results indicate that specific interactions between PEG and the truncated form of sTNF‐RI are elicited by an increased flexibility of the truncated protein combined perhaps with removal of steric or charge barriers. Covalently bound PEG at the N terminus reduced the protein affinity for the free polymer and induced a more rigid and polar configuration around Trp‐107. Deprotonation of His‐105, which is perpendicular to Trp‐107, was integral to the binding mechanism producing a pH‐dependent switching mechanism. These findings stress the importance of surface charge and structural plasticity in determining macromolecular binding affinities and demonstrate the ability of conjugated PEG to modify the localized surface structure in proteins away from the site of conjugation.
Random error analysis and reduction for stochastic computation based on autocorrelation sequence

This paper proposes the random error analysis method for stochastic computation based on autocorrelation sequence (AS), which is more general than the previous work based on Bernoulli sequence (BS). The analysis results show the use of proper ASs as input streams is able to reduce random error compared to the conventional use of BSs. In order to confirm that conclusion, we apply an AS, referred as Maximal Concentrated Autocorrelation Sequence (MCAS), into the stochastic computation system which implements Bernstein polynomial. Both the theoretical analysis and simulation results reveal that the use of MCAS reduces the random error.