Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Some Like it Hedged

Foreign currency exposure is a by-product of international investing. When obtaining global asset exposure, investors also obtain the embedded foreign currency exposure. The impact of this foreign currency exposure on the return and the volatility of the institutional investor’s portfolio can be quite meaningful. For example, according to a Reuters’ article, the rise in the US dollar wiped out about $1 trillion in US pension fund assets (i.e., in the dollar value of the funds’ non-dollar-denominated assets) between mid-2014 and March 2015 (Chavez-Dreyfuss 2015). <br><br>How to address this exposure has been a subject of much debate over the years. The seminal paper by Black (1989) argued for a “universal” hedge ratio for all investors. Perold and Schulman (1988) argued that US investors should completely hedge foreign currency exposure; another school of thought is that foreign currency exposure provides diversification benefits and should be left unhedged. Recently, Chen, Kritzman, and Turkington (2015) evaluated the impact of various currency-hedging strategies on a typical institutional investor portfolio. As expected, more-flexible strategies provide greater risk reduction, but there is no single best strategy ex ante, leaving investors to consider different risk–return trade-offs. <br><br>Although no single best-practice solution exists for addressing foreign currency exposures, institutional investors have three main choices:<br>1. Do nothing (i.e., maintain unhedged foreign currency exposure). <br>2. Hedge passively (i.e., maintain a constant hedge ratio). <br>3. Hedge actively (i.e., vary the hedge ratio). <br><br>The best solution will differ from institution to institution, but it comes down to two fundamental factors. First, the optimal solution depends on the importance of risk versus return and the institution’s tolerance for negative cash flow. Second, investors must decide whether they believe that currency managers are able to achieve a positive information ratio over the long term after fees and, importantly, whether they will be able to identify these currency managers. <br><br>Before I address the available choices, I present the estimated impact of foreign currency exposure on institutional portfolios. In the following sections, I consider four different base currencies: the US dollar, Canadian dollar, euro, and Japanese yen.
Behavioural Endocrinology of Breeding Adelie Penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae)

Measuring hormonal changes is vital for understanding how the social and physical environment influences behaviour, reproduction and survival. Various methods of hormone measurement exist, potentially explaining variation in results across studies; methods should be cross validated to ensure they correlate. I directly compare faecal and plasma hormone measurements (Chapter 2), and use the most suitable endocrine measure to test the Darling hypothesis (Chapter 3) that breeding is hastened and synchronized in larger colonies due to increased social stimulation (mediated by the endocrine system). Blood and faecal samples were simultaneously collected from individual Adelie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) for comparison, and assayed for testosterone and corticosterone (or their metabolites). Sex differences and variability within each measure, and correlation of values across measures were compared. For both hormones, plasma samples showed greater variation than faecal samples. Males had higher corticosterone levels than females, but the difference was only significant in faecal samples. Plasma testosterone, but not faecal testosterone, was significantly higher in males than females. Correlation between sample types was poor overall, and weaker in females than in males; perhaps because measures from plasma represent hormones that are both free and bound to globulins, whereas measures from faeces represent only the free portion. Faecal samples also represent a cumulative measure of hormones over time, as opposed to a plasma ‘snapshot’ concentration. Faecal sampling appears more suitable for assessing baseline hormone levels. In the second study I examined, over two seasons, whether the timing of breeding varied with colony size; larger colonies present occupants with higher levels of social stimulation and are predicted to show earlier, more synchronous breeding. Baseline faecal hormone levels throughout the breeding season, and survival, were measured to investigate possible proximate and ultimate mechanisms for the results. The influence of environmental variability was examined, by relating the timing of breeding, survival, and endocrine changes to sea ice conditions. Colony size did not influence the timing or synchrony of breeding, survival, or hormone
Possible Involvement of Mitochondrial Reactive Oxygen Species Production in Protein Degradation Induced by Heat Stress in Avian Muscle Cells

Heat stress (HS) stimulates mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and protein degradation in skeletal muscle. The present study investigated the stimulatory effects of HS-induced mitochondrial ROS production on the ubiquitin-proteasome protein degradation system in primary cultured avian muscle cells. Cells were isolated from the breast muscle of neonatal chicks, and then grown for 48 h. Thereafter, the cells were subjected to 37°C or 41°C (HS). Exposure to 6 h of HS treatment significantly decreased the cellular protein content compared to that of normal cells, an effect was completely suppressed by the addition of a proteasome-specific inhibitor. Whereas the mRNA levels of the 20S proteasome C2 subunit, which is one of the subunits of the 26S proteasome, did not change at any time during HS treatment (1, 3, 6 h), the mRNA levels of atrogin-1 and muscle ring-finger protein 1, both of which are muscle-specific ubiquitin ligases, increased after 1 h of HS but then decreased to near-normal values with time. Intracellular ROS production (the sum of H2O2, hydroxyl radicals, peroxyl radicals, peroxynitrite) did not change in the 1 h HS-exposed cells, but was significantly increased after 3 h and 6 h of HS. Mitochondrial superoxide production was significantly increased after 1 h of HS, which might increase the mRNA expression of ubiquitin ligase in muscle cells. In cells pretreated with 4-hydroxy TEMPO, which is able to decrease mitochondrial superoxide production, the increases in mitochondrial superoxide production and ubiquitin ligase mRNA levels observed after 1 h of HS were suppressed. The protein content of these cells was not decreased, which was observed after the longest period of HS (6 h). These findings suggest that mitochondrial superoxide production may play an important role in activating the ubiquitin-proteasome system, probably via the induction of ubiquitin ligases, in HS-exposed muscle cells.
A Influência da Alocação de Memória e Precisão na Resolução de Sistemas Lineares

Este trabalho realiza um estudo comparativo entre alguns dos metodos diretos de resolucao de sistemas lineares mais conhecidos na literatura [2, 3, 5] avaliando o uso de precisao simples e dupla na definicao das variaveis. Os metodos avaliados sao: Eliminacao Gaussiana, Metodo de Gauss-Jordan, Decomposicao LU e LDU, Decomposicao de Cholesky e Decomposicao QR por ortogonalizacao de Gram-Schmidt.
Elucidation of the infection process of Ustilaginoidea virens (teleomorph: Villosiclava virens) in rice spikelets

This study reports an efficient inoculation protocol that allowed cytological analysis of the infection process of the rice false smut pathogen Ustilaginoidea virens. Examination of serial semithin and ultrathin sections of infected spikelets showed that the primary infection sites for the pathogen were the upper parts of the three stamen filaments located between the ovary and the lodicules. The stigma and lodicules were also occasionally infected to a limited extent. The pathogen infected the filaments intercellularly and extended intercellularly along the filament base. The host cells were degraded gradually. The pathogen did not penetrate host cell walls directly and did not form haustoria. In the balls the ovary remained alive and was never infected. This suggests that the pathogen is a biotrophic parasite that grows intercellularly in vivo.
Wearable Solutions for Monitoring Cardiorespiratory Activity

155 Appendix . 157 Publication 1 . 159 Publication 2 . 165 Publication 3 . 171 Publication 4 . 181 Publication 5 . 189 Curriculum Vitae . 199 Elulookirjeldus . 200
Pathogenicity of Cytospora Fungi on Six Hardwood Species

Cytospora canker is a serious fungal disease of many shade, fruit, and ornamental tree species in the urban forest, orchards, and nurseries. Because Cytospora species are difficult to identify and their host ranges are poorly understood, it is not known if disease occurrence on one host poses a threat to other host species. Cytospora isolates were collected from aspen (Populus tremuloides) (Cytospora chrysosperma), green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) (Cytospora pruinosa), Siberian elm (Ulmus pumila) (Cytospora sacculus), alder (Alnus spp.) (Cytospora umbrina), cottonwood (Populus spp.) (Cytospora chrysosperma), and multi- and singlestemmed willow (Salix spp.) (Cytospora fugax). These isolates were inoculated into drought-stressed aspen, green ash, Siberian elm, thinleaf alder (A. tenuifolia), eastern cottonwood (P. deltoides), and single-stemmed willow. Ash, alder, and elm isolates were host specific. Aspen and cottonwood isolates were pathogenic only on aspen and cottonwood trees. Isolates from multi-stemmed willows caused cankers on aspen only and not single-stemmed willows. However, Cytospora spp. isolates collected from a single-stemmed willow were pathogenic on trees cloned from that willow. Water potential, as a covariate, did not explain variation in canker size among trees. Thus, Cytospora fungi that are host specific may not be a threat to other nearby tree species.
Tumor progression induced by integrin αvβ3 mediated anchorage‐dependent and ‐independent signaling (79.3)

Tumor cell interaction with the extracellular matrix facilitates cancer progression and metastasis. Integrin αvβ3, the most promiscuous integrin, binds a wide array of provisional matrix proteins, and promotes signaling events leading to tumor cell metastasis to bone, brain, and lymph node. While integrin αvβ3 expression is a marker of tumor progression for a wide range of histologically distinct cancers, the molecular mechanism by which αvβ3 influences the growth and malignancy of cancer is poorly understood. Here, we reveal that integrin αvβ3 not only promotes matrix mediated signaling, but to our surprise this receptor in the unligated state recruits KRAS and RalB to the plasma membrane, leading to the activation of TBK‐1/RelA. These events are both necessary and sufficient to promote tumor initiation, anchorage‐independence, self‐renewal, as well as resistance to nutrient deprivation and treatment with receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) inhibitors such as erlotinib. Genetic or pharmacological inhibition of RalB or its effectors suppresses tumor initiation, self‐renewal, and resensitizes tumors to RTK inhibition. These findings not only identify ανβ3 as a marker/driver of tumor stemness but reveal that this integrin can promote both ligand dependent as well as ligand independent signals that contribute to tumor progression and metastasis.
Bio-economic modeling of bovine intramammary infections

The research of this thesis was directed to support decision making in relation to mastitis control with special focus on the dry period. First, a guideline to cost factors associated with mastitis was set, and a comprehensive literature review was conducted to evaluate literature estimates of the cost and cost-benefits of mastitis control. In another project, a data analysis was conducted to estimate production loss due to new subclinical mastitis in Dutch dairy herds. The estimates were used as input values to assist in developing a dynamic and stochastic bio-economic model of intramammary infection. The model simulated the major pathogens in the Netherlands using recent knowledge on the dynamics of pathogen-specific intramammary infection to calculate the cost of these infections. Two systematic meta-analysis reviews were conducted; the first quantified the preventive effect of dry period interventions against new intramammary infections. The second meta-analysis quantified the cure rate of existing intramammary infections at dry off using dry cow therapy. Subsequently, the bio-economic model was updated to include the dynamics of pathogen-specific intramammary infections in the dry period. Thereafter, an economic evaluation of applied dry period interventions was carried out based on the meta-analyses studies.
Glycerol transport in yeasts: physiological, molecular and phylogenetic approaches

XVII Publications within the thesis context XXI Scope and outline of the thesis XXV Chapter I – General Introduction 1 The importance of glycerol for living organisms and biotechnological processes 3 Transmembrane transport of glycerol in yeasts 4 Glycerol transport in Saccharomyces cerevisiae 5 Glycerol transport in non-Saccharomyces yeasts 11 Glycerol utilization in yeasts 14 Glycerol synthesis in yeasts 16 Roles of glycerol in yeasts metabolism 17 Roles of glycerol in yeasts pathogenicity 20
Ice Formation and the Affects of Cold Acclimation on Cold Hardiness in a Subtropical Fruit Species

The current study was conducted to relate ice formation to the pattern and rate of leaf and stem injury of Satsuma mandarins on trifoliate orange rootstock. Potted trees were unacclimated, moderately acclimated or fully acclimated by exposing trees to 32/21C, 15/7C or 10/4C, respectively. Freezing treatments consisted of decreasing air temperature at 2C•h until ice formed as evidenced by exotherms determined using differential thermal analysis of stems. Air temperature was then decreased, held constant, or increased and held constant to simulate severe, moderate and mild freeze conditions, respectively. All treatment exhibited exotherms at -2 to -4C, which were smaller with milder freezing treatments. Only the fully acclimated trees exhibited multiple exotherms. Leaf watersoaking, an indication of ice formation, occurred concurrently with stem exotherms except for fully acclimated trees where there was up to a 30-min delay that corresponded to the second exotherm. Electrolyte leakage of leaves began to increase near the peak of the stem exotherm, but increased more slowly with milder freezing temperature treatments. In some treatments, electrolyte leakage reached a plateau near 50% but leaves survived. Leaves died when whole-leaf electrolyte leakage exceeded 7 50%. These data are discussed within the framework of a proposed mechanism of injury of Satsuma mandarin leaves by subfreezing temperatures, especially multiple exotherms of fully acclimated trees, and the plateau of electrolyte leakage of leaves at the critical level for survival
Quantifying relationships between traits and explicitly measured gradients of stress and disturbance in early successional plant communities

Questions: How can one explicitly quantify, and separately measure, stress and disturbance gradients? How do these gradients affect functional composition in early successional plant communities and to what extent? Can we accurately predict trait composition from knowledge of these gradients? Location: Southern Quebec, Canada. Methods: Using eight environmental variables measured in 48 early successional plant communities, we estimated stress and disturbance gradients through structural equation modelling. We then measured 10 functional traits on the most abundant species of these 48 communities and calculated their community-level mean and variance weighted by the relative abundance of each species. Finally, we related these community-weighted means and variances to the estimated stress and disturbance gradients using general linear models or generalized additive models. Results: We obtained a well-fitting measurement model of the stress and disturbance gradients existing in our sites. Of the 10 studied traits, only average plant reproductive height was strongly correlated with the stress (r2=0.464) and disturbance (r2=0.543) gradients. Leaf traits were not significantly related to either the stress or disturbance gradients. Conclusions: The well-fitting measurement model of the stress and disturbance gradients, combined with the generally weak trait–environment linkages, suggests that community assembly in these early successional plant communities is driven primarily by stochastic processes linked to the history of arrival of propagules and not to trait-based environmental filtering.
Correlación del grado de respuesta tras quimioterapia neoadyuvante, en pacientes con Ca de mama con fenotipo triple negativo. RM vs anatomía patológica.

ObjetivosLa quimioterapia sistemica esta ampliamente aceptada y usada en el tratamiento del cancer de mama, mas aun en aquellas pacientes con cancer localmente avanzado(1-4). Ultimamente se ha demostrado que la quimioterapia neoadyuvante en estos pacientes con tumoracion localmente avanzada, tienen tiempo libre de enfermedad y supervivencia similar a aquellas pacientes tratadas unicamente con quimioterapia convencional(5), pero si se ha demostrado que estas paciente son subsidiarias de cirugia conservadora de la mama(6-8). La RM, con secuencias anatomicas, funcionales y tras al administracion de contraste intravenoso, es ampliamente superior que la mamografia y la ultrasonografia en el estudio de la tumoracion en cuanto a dimensiones, caracteristicas y multifocalidad(4,9-11). Tambien se ha demostrado que la RM previo yposterior al tratamiento es un marcador mas seguro que la exploracion fisica, para determinar la repuesta tumoral(4,12,13). La repuesta del cancer de mama a la neoadyuvancia viene determinada por muchos factores, entre ellos la inmunohistoquimica especifica de cada tumor(luminal A, luminal B, HER2+, triple negativo), evidenciandose mejor repuesta en aquellas pacientes con fenotipo triple negativo o HER2+noluminal(14-16).
The Dragonflies of Europe

Richard Askew’s The Dragonflies of Europe was first published in 1988 and quickly established itself as one of the leading texts on European dragonflies. At this time there were 114 recognised European species of dragonflies and the core of the book was devoted to their identification. This was facilitated by the provision of keys to the adults and larvae along with a detailed description of each species. The descriptions were further supplemented with high quality line drawings of the morphological features necessary to distinguish each species. Each entry was completed with notes on distribution, full synonymy, distribution maps, biological characteristics and flight period. The provision of 29 superb colour plates illustrating most, but not all, of the species further aided identification. The inclusion of introductory chapters on dragonfly taxonomy, morphology, biology and ecology completed the text.
Thymoquinone Ameliorates Tamoxifen Induced Hepatotoxicity and Augments its Anti‐cancer Activity in Breast Cancer

Hepatotoxicity accounts for the limited use of Tamoxifen (TAM) for breast cancer. Herein we investigated if Thymoquinone (TQ) can abate TAM induced toxicity. Our data suggests that TQ co-treatment prevented the extensive weight loss in TAM treated female SD rats with DMBA induced mammary tumors. Moreover, TQ effectively lowered the levels of sGOT and sGPT which were elevated by TAM treatment. Similarly, TQ elevated the levels of anti-oxidant enzymes GSH, SOD and CAT which was lowered in TAM treated animals. Also, the protein expression of iNOS, NF-kB and TNF-α was found to be lower in the liver of combination treated animals. In addition we also investigated the chemo-synergizing effect of TQ in breast cancer cells and in vivo mammary cancer model. Our studies revealed that the treatment of cells with TAM (10 μM) in combination with TQ (25 μM) augmented the cell death. Also, TQ potentiated the antitumor activity of TAM in rats with mammary tumors, as was depicted by reduced tumor volumes in combination tr.
Aktivitas ACCase mesokarp kelapa sawit dan kloning fragmen gen penyandi ACCase subunit biotin karboksilase

Genetic engineering to produce high yielding oil palm might be done by over expressing gene encoding key enzyme for oil biosynthesis in the oil palm mesocarp, one of which is ACCase. The objective of this research was to analyze ACCase activity of mesocarp from several developmental stages of fruit and to clone conserved region cDNA of gene encoding biotin carboxylase subunit of ACCase (BC-htACCase) from oil palm mesocarp. Activity of ACCase was analyzed by HPLC. Amplification of cDNA was done by means of reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) using degenerate heterologous primer on several annealing temperature and MgCl2 concentration. The cDNA fragment of RT-PCR product was cloned, sequenced and analyzed to confirm that the cloned cDNA was conserved region of BChtACCase. The result showed that ACCase activity increased from the 14 week to the 20 week-old fruit, and then decreased. Using heterologous degenerate primers, cDNA fragments of BC-htACCase conserved region (469 bp) can be specifically amplified at 60 C annealing temperature with 2 mM MgCl2 concentration. The result of BlastX analysis showed that the sequence of cloned cDNA fragment was highly homologous with the conserved region of BC-htACCase from Glycine max, Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana tabacum, and Brassica napus with 243, 237, 236, 231 bit score, and E. value 2e-63, 1e-61, 2e-61 and 5e-60, respectively.
Relative expression of fibroblast growth factor receptors in feline sarcomas

Fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs) are involved in many physiological processes as well as cancer development and progression. At least two splice variants (IIIb and IIIc) have been described for FGFR1-3. Expression switching of FGFR2IIIb to the IIIc isoform relates to epithelial to mesenchymal transition in human prostate and bladder cancer and leads to a more invasive and metastatic tumor phenotype. While extensive research investigated the role of FGFRs in epithelial tumors, very little is known about their role and expression in sarcomas. The hypothesis of this study was that feline injection site sarcomas(ISSa) and non-injection site sarcomas (non-ISSa) would have differential expression of the FGFRs and their splice variants. Expression levels of mRNA for these genes were evaluated by RT-PCR using cDNA from six cell lines (4 ISSa and 2 non-ISSa), eight tumor samples (5 ISSa and 3 non-ISSa) stored in RNA later at - 80°C and forty-nine FFPE samples (39 ISSa and 10 non-ISSa). The relative quantification was performed by normalization against expression of RPL17, YWHAZ and PPIA genes. No statistically significant difference was found for FGFR1, FGFR2IIIb, FGFR3 and FGFR4. FGFR2IIIc was up-regulated in ISSa if compared to non-ISSa (P=0.028). The present study demonstrated that FGFR2IIIc is differentially expressed in feline ISSa compared to non-ISSa. More research is needed to evaluate if different expression levels are related to the more malignant behavior of ISSa.