Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can microcredit impact the activity of small and medium enterprises? New evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design in Panama

In this paper, we conduct an impact analysis of microcredit on entrepreneurial activity using a new data-set collected among 740 entrepreneurs located in Panama. Our focus is on a new type of microfinance institution which grants loans to enterprises falling in what we call the financial missing middle Our results show a limited impact of access to credit on firm's revenues despite a significant impact on investment in equipment and immobilization. The magnitude of the positive effect is higher on micro-enterprises while auto-enterprises are negatively impacted by microcredit as is usually documented in the literature. We emphasize that the cost of credit is one of the major determinants of the limited impact of microcredit on entrepreneurial activity.
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT IN LOGISTICS FIRMS

It is due to the blessings of the last decade as well as the sincere efforts of the business fraternity that the Asian economy is flourishing with a market orientation, which is a shift from a sales orientation. The availability of a large number of alternative products and services, substitute products, and integrated services, has compelled corporate players to be competent so as to perform in a highly competitive environment. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a mix of people, processes and technology which focuses on understanding the customer. It is an integrated approach to manage relationships by focusing on customer retention and relationship enhancement. Organizations that effectively apply Customer Relationship Management will garner the rewards in customer reliability as well as productivity. Nevertheless, a successful mechanism appears to be vague to many enterprises because they do not recognize CRM’s potential in the current state of affairs. This study adopts a relational perspective with which to plan an executive strategy for CRM based on a ‘Gaps’ model of organizations. The gaps are a variety of failures which hinder CRM and have to be identified and overcome. The research data came from semi-structured interviews by logistics managers with customer companies in Bhutan and India.
Adult T‐cell leukemia with leukemia cell infiltration into the gastrointestinal tract

Five cases of untreated adult T‐cell leukemia (ATL) with leukemia cell infiltration into the gastrointestinal (GI) tract were reported. X‐ray findings of the GI tract showed diffuse abnormal mucosal patterns throughout the GI tract in all five patients. Endoscopic findings corresponded well with the x‐ray findings. Pathologic examination of biopsied specimens from all five patients revealed diffuse and extensive leukemic infiltration into the stomach and/or the large intestine.
Identification of Two Major Sites in the Type I Interleukin-1 Receptor Cytoplasmic Region Responsible for Coupling to Pro-inflammatory Signaling Pathways*

Type I interleukin-1 receptor is the prototype for a family of proteins, which play a central role in early responses to injury and infection. The similarity of function across the family is reflected in similarity in signaling: all members tested couple to activation of NFκB and stress kinases. The coupling to these pathways is mediated by a 200-residue intracellular domain (the Toll/interleukin-1 receptor domain), in which sequence conservation is primarily confined to three short motifs (boxes 1, 2, and 3) located at amino acid residue positions 10 (box 1), 60 (box 2), and 170 (box 3). We have analyzed the contribution of these motifs to function by alanine scanning mutagenesis of the human interleukin-1 receptor type I. Mutant receptors were tested for expression, ligand binding, activation of receptor-associated kinase(s), NFκB, stress kinases, and transcription. Mutations in all three motifs led to low cell surface expression. Mutants in box 3 were, however, wild type for signaling, whereas mutants in boxes 1 and 2 were defective. We conclude that the conserved motifs box 1 and box 2 mediate the coupling of molecules in the family to inflammation signaling pathways.
NON-LINEAR MODEL OF A SYNCHRONOUS GENERATOR FOR DYNAMIC SIMULATIONS, TRAINING AND TEACHING

The development of digital and simulation tools is a major challenge for the teaching of electro-mechanics and related fields, as their suitability depends both on scientific and educational requirements. In this regard, this paper presents a synchronous generator model, developed for the teaching and training in the hydroelectric field. The model developed with MATLAB/SIMULINK and having the characteristics of being dynamic, versatile, flexible and easily integrated in most electrical power generation system using synchronous generator, is made of a mechanical part, an electrical part, and an excitation circuit. It is a dynamic nonlinear model which can perform most of the simulations of real life situations by acting on the load and presenting the resulting curves. Moreover, it allows direct simulation without the need for initial conditions re-evaluation. In this paper, its stepwise system development is covered alongside its subsystems. Our results indicate a successful application of the developed model in a complete hydropower system production, and suggest the importance of such tool.
A multicenter, randomized double-blind study of valsartan/hydrochlorothiazide combination versus amlodipine in patients with mild to moderate hypertension

Objective To compare the antihypertensive efficacy and tolerability of a once-daily fixed valsartan/hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) combination and amlodipine in subjects with mild-to-moderate hypertension. Subjects and setting In this multicentre, double-blind, randomized, comparative trial, 690 patients with sitting systolic blood pressure (BP) ⩾ 160 mmHg and sitting diastolic BP ⩾ 95 mmHg at the end of a 2-week placebo wash-out period were randomized to valsartan-based treatment (n = 342) or amlodipine (n = 348). Methods The patients received valsartan 80 mg o.d. or amlodipine 5 mg o.d for 4 weeks; in the case of an unsatisfactory blood pressure response, the treatments could be respectively changed to the fixed combination of valsartan 80 mg + HCTZ 12.5 mg o.d. or amlodipine 10 mg o.d. for a further 8 weeks. Results Both treatment approaches decreased systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure to the same extent. The rate of responders to treatment at the end of fourth week (before up-titration) was 57.4% among the valsartan-treated patients and 61.9% among the amlodipine-treated patients (ns). At the end of the study, the rate of responders was not significantly different between the two groups (74.9 versus 72.1%). Valsartan-based treatment had a slightly lower incidence of adverse events (1.5 versus 5.5%;P = 0.006). Conclusions The results of this trial demonstrate that the valsartan/hydrochlorothiazide combination and amlodipine are equally effective in lowering BP, and that the combination is better tolerated.
FMNL2 Enhances Invasion of Colorectal Carcinoma by Inducing Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition

FMNL2 is a member of diaphanous-related formins that control actin-dependent processes such as cell motility and invasion. Its overexpression in metastatic cell lines and tissues of colorectal carcinoma has been associated with aggressive tumor development in our previous study. But its specific role in cancer is largely unknown. Here we report that FMNL2 is involved in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) maintenance in human colorectal carcinoma cells. A positive correlation between FMNL2 and vimentin expression and an inverse correlation between FMNL2 and E-cadherin expression were found in colorectal carcinoma cell lines and cancer tissues. Specific knockdown of FMNL2 led to an epithelial-state transition, confirmed by the cobblestone-like phenotype, upregulation of E-cadherin, α-catenin, and γ-catenin, and downregulation of vimentin, snail, slug. Loss of FMNL2 expression lowered the ability of TGF-β to induce cell invasion and EMT, as shown by morphology and the expression levels. Upregulation of vimentin, slug, snail, downregulation of E-cadherin and activation of receptor-Smad3 phosphorylation were observed in M5 and MDCK cells induced by TGF-β, whereas altered expression of these markers was not obvious in FMNL2-depleting M5 cells. High levels of activation of p-MAPK and p-MEK, but not p-PI3K and p-AKT, were observed in SW480/FMNL2+ cells compared with control cells. Treatment with U0126 could abrogate the activation of p-MAPK and p-MEK, whereas LY294002 treatment had no effect on the PI3K/AKT pathway. In conclusion, these findings identify a novel EMT and tumor promoting function for FMNL2, which is involved in TGF-β–induced EMT and colorectal carcinoma cell invasion via Smad3 effectors, or in collaboration with MAPK/MEK pathway. Mol Cancer Res; 8(12); 1579–90. ©2010 AACR.
Noise Exposure and Hearing Loss in Agriculture: A Survey of Farmers and Farm Workers in the Southland Region of New Zealand

Farmers are known to be exposed to intermittent intense noise from a variety of sources, but long-term exposure and the resulting risk of hearing loss have not been well characterized. We studied a cross-sectional random sample of farms on which agricultural workers completed an audiometric test and questionnaire, and performed noise dosimetry on a subsample. Sixty-five percent of farms and a total of 586 workers participated. Noise on the subsample of 60 farms lay in a range between 84.8 to 86.8 dB(A) and hearing losses were consistent with this level of exposure. Age, driving tractors without cabs, and working with metal were important risk factors. Reported compliance with hearing protection was higher than that actually observed. The majority of farmers have a moderate risk of hearing loss, but a significant minority is at high risk. Elimination and isolation of noise sources are the control methods of choice, and if residual hearing protection is required, compliance must be improved.
The role of diet in modulating the immune response of broilers: the example of PUFAs

Summary Identifying nutritional factors that modulate the immune response and influence an animalis susceptibility to infectious diseases is currently an active area of investigation. The intercellular and intracellular communication pathways of leukocytes are influenced by dietary meal patterns, plane of nutrition, and high dietary levels of some nutrients. For example, the types and ratios of dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) influence leukocyte function by acting through specific cellular receptors and by changing eicosanoid production patterns. A high ratio of dietary nn3:nn6 PUFA shifts the immune response towards an increased antibody response and at the same time towards a decreased inflammatory response. Decreased inflammatory responses may cause better resilience of broilers during a challenge to some types of diseases but may increase susceptibility to others. Recent studies show that under field conditions, the modulatory actions of dietary PUFAs on the immune system may result in a change in the spectrum of disease problems, with decreased incidence of cellulitis and septicemia, but increased incidence of tumors. Thus dietary PUFAs may be thought of as nonn pharmacological immunomodulators that change the incidence of diseases in broiler populations. The decision to include nn3 PUFAs in the diet is dependent upon the specific infectious disease processes that are a problem in a flock at any given time.
Everybody be cool , this is a roppery !

We present algorithms which allow an attacker to search for and compose gadgets regardless of the underlying architecture using the REIL meta language. Gadgets are code fragments which can be used to build unintended programs from existing code in memory. Our contribution is a framework of algorithms capable of locating a Turing-complete gadget set and a returnoriented compiler for the ARM architecture as a proofof-concept implementation. This compiler accepts inputs in an assembly-like language, simplifying the otherwise tedious gadget selection process by hand. Therefore it enables the researcher to focus on the other parts of successful exploitation by minimizing the shellcode development time. Furthermore we will discuss the necessary steps for successful exploitation of iPhoneOS using the developed framework and the compiler.
Genotype-environment interaction in children's adjustment to parental separation.

BACKGROUND Understanding the processes by which genetic risks lead to psychopathology is a key conceptual and methodological task for research. The current study, based on an at-risk adoption design, examines the hypothesis that the effect of genetic risk on children's behavioral/emotional problems and social adjustment is moderated by psychosocial risk, specifically parental separation. METHOD Data are based on the Colorado Adoption Project. One hundred and seventy-one adoptees, all of whom were placed in the adoptive home in early infancy, were assessed using a multi-method strategy at 12 years of age. Adoptees' adjustment was measured using parent and 'teacher reports on the Child Behavioral Checklist as well as observer ratings of social competence; all raters were blind to the biological background of the adoptee. Genetic risk was indexed by biological parents' self-reports of negative emotionality, which was completed prior to the adoption. RESULTS By age 12 years, 23 of the 171 adoptees experienced a separation in the adoptive home. Correlation and regression analyses indicated that the association between genetic risk and child adjustment was moderated by parental separation. In the absence of parental separation, genetic risk was uncorrelated with adoptee adjustment; however, there were substantial and significant associations between individual differences in genetic diathesis and poor adjustment among the adoptees who experienced parental separation. CONCLUSIONS The association between parental separation and children's behavioral/ emotional and social adjustment may not be entirely environmental in origin. Genetic vulnerability is accentuated by major psychosocial stresses, and this may partly explain the wide individual differences in children's adjustment to family transitions.
Cheap Talk with Correlated Information

We consider a situation where a decision maker gathers information from two or more imperfectly informed experts. Private information is (conditionally) correlated across players, and communication is cheap talk. We show that with two experts correlation unambiguously tightens the conditions on preferences for a truth-telling equilibrium. However, with multiple experts the effect of correlation on the incentives to report information truthfully is non-monotonic. In particular, while very small and very large correlation levels are detrimental for truth-telling, intermediate levels of correlation may discipline experts' equilibrium behavior, making it easier to sustain truth-telling.
Harm reduction in the home of the war on drugs: methadone and needle exchange in the USA

It is by now well understood in medicine that narcotic maintenance using methadone offers a powerful tool for reducing the harms of opiate addiction and the array of public health and social problems that can accompany it [1]. In America, apparently, this is not good enough. There has been virtually no change in methadone treatment in the United States throughout the entire period of the AIDS epidemic-which has already caimed the lives of over 100 000 US drug users and those infected by them [2]. As the populations of entire communities have been ravaged by AIDS related to drug use, there has been no expansion of methadone treatment, relentless opposition, especially in the Federal government, to needle exchange, and (despite recent support by the US drug czar) only the most modest and grudging accommodations to new models of methadone based on harm-reduction principles. For example, there has been no lowering of the threshold to program entry or softening of the punitive structure of services-the factors which determine its acceptability to the wide spectrum of potential patients and, ultimately, its penetration into the affected population.
8-OH-DPAT suppresses the induction of LTP in brain slices of the rat lateral amygdala

The effect of 8-OH-DPAT on the induction of long-term potentiation (LTP) in the lateral nucleus of the amygdala was investigated using rat horizontal brain slice preparations. Bath-applied 8-OH-DPAT decreased the field potential amplitudes in a dose-dependent manner. In the lateral amygdala synapses, 8-OH-DPAT significantly suppressed the induction of LTP evoked by a weak theta burst stimulation. This suppression of LTP was also found using a concentration of 8-OH-DPAT, which did not influence the baseline activity significantly. The specific 5-HT1A receptor antagonist, WAY 100,635 blocked the inhibitory effect of 8-OH-DPAT on the induction of LTP. The inhibitory effect of 5-HT1A receptor stimulation on amygdaloid neuronal plasticity suggests that the amygdala is a site for serotonin to exert its influence on memory of aversive events.
Critical issues of human resource planning, performance evaluation and long-term development on the central region and non-central areas

In human resource management practices of various nations, companies have to adapt to the local specifics. This claim is strongly supported by the results of the international Central and Eastern European International Research Team research. Based on the instances of research conducted in various countries, we can clearly see that only the ‘best practice’ is not enough when used exclusively, and a ‘best fit’ perspective has to support it, which optimizes the usage of resources to the local economical–social environment. Our notes revealed that non-central areas have many more employees per human resource (HR) specialist, which may result in excess tasks. In the case of companies from Central Hungary (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics 2 region), one HR professional usually deals with 55 employees, while in non-central regions, this number may reach up to 112 workers. This means that in non-central areas, HR employees have double the work. Also, their daily operative work may bring in a huge overload, which concerns all functions of HR. Critical issues are HR planning, training, development and keeping talented individuals (talent management), which mean serious questions and problems for companies that are not in the Central Hungarian region.
WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR IMPROVED WASTE MANAGEMENT SERVICES: THE CASE OF TARKWA-NSUAEM MUNICIPALITY

Management of waste has become a challenge to governments all over the world. This challenge is due to myriad of reason including increasing population growth coupled with limited resources for efficient management practices. This problem is no different in Ghana. Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) are always saddled with the difficulty in raising funds to support efficient waste management practices. Most of the Assemblies depend largely on the traditional allocations of the Central Government which indeed are not sufficient enough to help them deal with the problem. It is therefore very necessary to find out other non traditional sources of funding for waste management activities for the various MMDAs. This study looks at one major non traditional means of raising funds to support waste management activities; that is the option of encouraging people to pay (not full recovery) for the cleaning of their waste. The study uses the Willingness to Pay approach (the direct method) to estimate what people would be prepared to pay to support waste management practices in their local areas and measures the significant difference between what rural and urban residents are willing to pay to support waste management in the Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipality. INTRIDUCTION The generation and management of waste have become a concern to governments all over the world. The environment which serves as the repository for waste and takes care of the waste through the natural process of recycling, is not able to perform this function properly again. Several studies have revealed that an average solid waste generation rate is 0.5 kg per person per day (Okpala, 1984). Haskoning and Konsadem Associates (1994) estimated an average per capita solid waste generation rate of 0.6kg per day with a population density of 300 kg m 3 . The increase in the generation of waste has made it difficult for the natural waste recycling process to sustain itself. This has been mainly due to population growth coupled with high consumption levels of people which is also associated with high levels of waste generation. This challenge is noticed not only in Ghana but also at the international levels. Many municipalities in developing countries spend a large proportion of their budgets on the collection, transport and disposal of waste. Their waste management is a costly service that consumes between 20 and 50 per cent of available operational budgets for municipal
Finding and Counting Tree-Like Subgraphs Using MapReduce

Several variants of the subgraph isomorphism problem, e.g., finding, counting, and estimating frequencies of subgraphs in networks arise in a number of real world applications, such as web analysis, disease diffusion prediction, and social network analysis. These problems are computationally challenging in having to scale to very large networks with millions of vertices. In this paper, we present <sc>SAHad</sc>, a MapReduce algorithm for detecting and counting trees of bounded size using the elegant color coding technique developed by N. Alon et al. <sc>SAHad</sc> is a randomized algorithm, and we show rigorous bounds on the approximation quality and the performance of it. <sc>SAHad</sc> scales to very large networks comprising of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX"> $10^7-10^8$</tex-math><alternatives><inline-graphic xlink:href="zhao-ieq1-2768426.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> vertices and <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$10^8-10^9$</tex-math><alternatives> <inline-graphic xlink:href="zhao-ieq2-2768426.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> edges and tree-like (acyclic) templates with up to 12 vertices. Further, we extend our results by implementing <sc>SAHad</sc> in the Harp framework, which is more of a high performance computing environment. The new implementation gives 100x improvement in performance over the standard Hadoop implementation and achieves better performance than state-of-the-art MPI solutions on larger graphs.
Platelet-Activating Factor Production in the Spinal Cord of Experimental Allergic Encephalomyelitis Mice via the Group IVA Cytosolic Phospholipase A2-Lyso-PAFAT Axis1

Platelet-activating factor (PAF; 1-O-alkyl-2-acetyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine) plays a critical role in inflammatory disorders including experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE), an animal model for multiple sclerosis (MS). Although PAF accumulation in the spinal cord (SC) of EAE mice and cerebrospinal fluid of MS patients has been reported, little is known about the metabolic processing of PAF in these diseases. In this study, we demonstrate that the activities of phospholipase A2 (PLA2) and acetyl-CoA:lyso-PAF acetyltransferase (LysoPAFAT) are elevated in the SC of EAE mice on a C57BL/6 genetic background compared with those of naive mice and correlate with disease severity. Correspondingly, levels of groups IVA, IVB, and IVF cytosolic PLA2s, group V secretory PLA2, and LysoPAFAT transcripts are up-regulated in the SC of EAE mice. PAF acetylhydrolase activity is unchanged during the disease course. In addition, we show that LysoPAFAT mRNA and protein are predominantly expressed in microglia. Considering the substrate specificity and involvement of PAF production, group IVA cytosolic PLA2 is likely to be responsible for the increased PLA2 activity. These data suggest that PAF accumulation in the SC of EAE mice is profoundly dependent on the group IVA cytosolic PLA2/LysoPAFAT axis present in the infiltrating macrophages and activated microglia.