bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Serum soluble CD44v6 levels in patients with oral and maxillofacial malignancy
Authors: Chang SM , Xing RD , Zhang FM , Duan YQ 
Published: June 2009

Objective:  To determine the levels of serum sCD44v6 in patients with oral cancer and evaluate the value of serum sCD44v6 in adjuvant diagnosis, staging and monitoring treatment response in these patients.Materials and Methods:  A total of 112 hospitalized patients with oral and maxillofacial malignancy and 28 healthy individuals were examined for serum sCD44v6 levels. Venous blood was collected from these patients and the healthy individuals. One week after treatment, venous blood was collected once again in 60 patients with oral and maxillofacial squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC).Results:  The sCD44v6 concentration was not significantly different between patients with oral and maxillofacial malignancy and control group (P > 0.05). The levels of serum sCD44v6 in patients with OSCC and salivary carcinoma showed no difference with those in control group (P > 0.05). The sCD44v6 level in patients with stage III and IV disease was higher than that of patients with stage I and II and that of the control group, but the difference was not significant (P > 0.05). Serum sCD44v6 levels in patients with OSCC after treatment became lower than that prevailed during pretreatment (P < 0.05).Conclusion:  The possible roles of CD44v6 in the diagnosis of oral and maxillofacial malignancy deserve further elucidation and evaluation. Serum sCD44v6 may be a valuable marker in monitoring treatment response in patients with OSCC.
Humoral immunity to cow’s milk proteins and gliadin within the etiology of recurrent aphthous ulcers?
Authors: Besu I , Jankovic L , Magdu IU , Konic‐Ristic A , Raskovic S , Juranic Z 
Published: June 2009

Objectives: The goal of this study was to determine the incidence of serum antibodies to gliadin and to cow’s milk proteins (CMP) using ELISA test, within patients who have recurrent aphthous ulcers (RAU).Subjects and Methods: Fifty patients with recurrent aphthous ulcers and fifty healthy people were included in this research. Levels of serum IgA and IgG antibodies to gliadin and IgA, IgG and IgE to CMP were determined using ELISA.Results: The levels of serum antigliadin IgA and IgG antibodies were not significantly higher in patients with RAU in comparison with the controls (P = 0.937 and P = 0.1854 respectively). The levels of serum anti‐CMP IgA, IgG and IgE antibodies were significantly higher in patients with RAU in comparison with the controls (P < 0.005, P < 0.002 and P < 0.001 respectively). In general, the increased humoral (IgA or IgG) immunoreactivity to CMP was found in 32 of 50 patients, while 17 of them showed the increased levels of both IgA and IgG immunoreactivity to CMP. At the same time, 16 out of 50 patients had IgA, IgG and IgE immunoreactivity to CMP.Conclusion: These results indicate the strong association between high levels of serum anti‐CMP IgA, IgG and IgE antibodies and clinical manifestations of recurrent aphthous ulcers.
Insulin resistance among Brazilian schoolchildren: association with risk factors for cardiovascular diseases
Authors: Strufaldi MWL , Da Silva EMK , Puccini RF 
Published: June 2009

AbstractAim:  Our purpose was to evaluate Insulin Resistance (IR) and its association with risk factors for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) among 161 (6‐ to 10‐year‐old) schoolchildren.Methods:  This two‐stage cross‐sectional study evaluated: BMI, blood pressure, personal history (birth weight) and family history of CVDs. Children with at least one of the following criteria participated in the second stage: obesity, personal or family history. Insulin resistance was determined using Homeostasis Model Assessment (HOMA).Results:  The HOMA distribution in terciles showed mean values for the first, second and third tercile of 0.41, 0.79 and 2.11 respectively. The HOMA distribution in the third tercile demonstrated statistically significant associations with overweight/obesity (p = 0.007), hypertension (p = 0.008) and low HDL (p = 0.02). Analysis of mean birth weight in each tercile and between terciles did not present any positive correlation (p = 0.213).Conclusion:  Higher levels of HOMA (IR) were positively associated with risk factors for CVD among schoolchildren.
Mina Loy’s Modern Long Poem: New York and the Compensations of Poverty
Authors: Egan Deirdre 
Published: June 2009

AbstractModernist poet Mina Loy composed a series of poems in and about lower Manhattan during the late 1930s and into the 1940s, which she listed together in her notes under the title Compensations of Poverty. The poems, however, have never been collected or analyzed together as a group for their relationship to each other. The archival drafts of the poems, along with the published versions of poems, suggest that they be understood as a conscious grouping much like the long poems Loy’s modernist contemporaries were producing at the same moment in literary history. Taken together as one long poem comprised of various lyrics, this text focuses on figures and spaces typically marginalized by the workings of urban modernity: the homeless, children, and even insects who reside in the Lower East Side of New York. Loy’s Compensations of Poverty links seemingly different female figures to interrogate economic and spiritual value in the cityscape, suggesting finally that the poet figure serves as the force of transformation from an impoverished landscape to a divine one.
A Genome‐wide Functional Characterization of Arabidopsis Regulatory Calcium Sensors in Pollen Tubes
Authors: Zhou Liming , Fu Ying , Yang Zhenbiao 
Published: June 2009

Abstract Calcium, an ubiquitous second messenger, plays an essential and versatile role in cellular signaling. The diverse function of calcium signals is achieved by an excess of calcium sensors. Plants possess large numbers of calcium sensors, most of which have not been functionally characterized. To identify physiologically relevant calcium sensors in a specific cell type, we conducted a genome‐wide functional survey in pollen tubes, for which spatiotemporal calcium signals are well‐characterized and required for polarized tip growth. Pollen‐specific members of calmodulin (CaM), CaM‐like (CML), calcium‐dependent protein kinase (CDPK) and calcineurin B‐like protein (CBL) families were tagged with green fluorescence protein (GFP) and their localization patterns and overexpression phenotypes were characterized in tobacco pollen tubes. We found that several fusion proteins showed distinct overexpression phenotypes and subcellular localization patterns. CDPK24‐GFP was localized to the vegetative nucleus and the generative cell/sperms. CDPK32‐GFP caused severe growth depolarization. CBL2‐GFP and CBL3‐GFP exhibited dynamic patterns of subcellular localization, including several endomembrane compartments, the apical plasma membrane (PM), and cytoskeleton‐like structures in pollen tubes. Their overexpression also inhibited pollen tube elongation and induced growth depolarization. These putative calcium sensors are excellent candidates for the calcium sensors responsible for the regulation of calcium homeostasis and calcium‐dependent tip growth and growth oscillation in pollen tubes.
Life Sciences Roundtable: Strategy and Financing
Authors: Lewent Judy , Fuller Joe , Scharfstein David , Passov Rick , Petty Cathrin , Simmons Charles , Greene Jeff , Crnkovich Pete , Luce Carolyn Buck 
Published: June 2009

In light of the challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry, a distinguished group of pharma executives and strategic and financial advisers discusses the following corporate decisions:

Strategy: What business model is most likely to maximize long‐term shareholder value? For example, is diversification by big pharma into areas like consumer healthcare and generics a reliable way to create sustainable value?
Capital allocation: What are the best methods for evaluating investments in pharma R&D, and for deciding which programs should be terminated and which assets divested? If conventional DCF isn't much help in a world where R&D outcomes are so uncertain, what about proposed models like real options?
Corporate governance and incentive systems: Should big pharma continue to outsource ever more of its R&D functions to biotech and venture capital? Or can it overcome the problems associated with size by creating more decentralized business units and trying to replicate the accountability and incentives of smaller biotech firms?
Capital structure and payout policy: Are the large cash and equity positions and minimal payouts of big pharma, typically justified as cushioning the uncertainties associated with pharma R&D, likely to be the value‐maximizing capital structure in the future? With many biotechs struggling and venture capital scarce, where are the new sources of capital for the industry? And can future deals be structured in ways that help bring about higher returns for big pharma as well as the R&D providers?
Disclosure: What should management tell investors to help ensure that their companies' policies and promising investments are reflected in their stock prices?
Specific Knowledge and Divisional Performance Measurement
Authors: Jensen Michael C. , Meckling William H. 
Published: June 2009

This classic by the formulators of agency cost theory discusses five common divisional performance measurement methods—cost centers, revenue centers, profit centers, investment centers, and expense centers—while providing a theory that attempts to explain when each of these methods is likely to be the most efficient. The central insight of the theory is that each method offers a different way of aligning decision‐making authority with valuable “specific knowledge” inside the organization.The theory suggests that cost and revenue centers work best in cases where headquarters has good information about cost and demand functions, product quality, and optimal output mix. Profit centers—defined as business units whose managers have responsibility for overall profits, but not the authority to make major capital spending decisions—tend to supplant revenue and cost centers when line managers have a significant informational advantage over headquarters and when there are few interdependencies (or “synergies”) between divisions. Investment centers—profit centers in which unit managers are allowed to make major investment decisions—tend to prevail when the activity is capital‐intensive and when it is difficult for headquarters to identify the value‐maximizing investment strategy.In evaluating the performance of profit centers, rate‐of‐return measures like ROA are likely to be effective when unit managers do not have major influence over the level of new investment. But, in the case of investment centers, Economic Value Added, or EVA, is likely to be the most effective single‐period measure because it is designed to encourage only value‐increasing investment decisions.
Using Organizational Architecture to Lead Change*
Authors: Brickley James , Smith Clifford , Zimmerman Jerold , Willett Janice 
Published: June 2009

Effective leadership involves more than developing and communicating the right strategic vision for the company. To encourage employees to carry out the corporate vision, companies must ensure consistency among the following three main components of their “organizational architecture:”

the allocation of decision‐making authority (that is, who in the organization gets to make what decisions);
performance measurement systems (for evaluating the performance of individuals as well as business units); and
reward systems (the rewards for success, both financial and otherwise, and the consequences of failure).

The authors illustrate the application of this framework with the case of Xerox's (eventually) successful attempt to create a customer‐oriented workforce in the 1980s. But a more effective demonstration of the importance of these principles, as the authors go on to suggest, might well be the same company's well‐known failure to realize the commercial promise of the many inventions by its research group in Palo Alto.This organizational framework is especially useful for evaluating the likely effects of major corporate initiatives such as “Six Sigma” or the “Balanced Scorecard.” For example, it could be used to help top management determine whether, and under what circumstances, decentralization is likely to improve decision‐making and performance, as well as the changes in the firm's performance management and incentive systems that would be required to make decentralization work.Finally, the authors apply the framework to another important leadership issue: corporate ethics. In response to the scandals of the past decade and the passage of Sarbanes‐Oxley, many U.S. companies have issued formal codes of conduct, appointed ethics officers, and instituted training programs in ethics. But a key question for top management is whether the incentives established by the firm's organizational architecture reinforce or undermine the code of conduct. In this sense, ensuring consistency in organizational design is an important leadership function—one that is critical to encouraging ethical behavior as well as the pursuit of shareholder value.
Why Capital Efficiency Measures Are Rarely Used in Incentive Plans, and How to Change That
Authors: O'Byrne Stephen F. , Young S. David 
Published: June 2009

Despite the wide acceptance of DCF valuation and its corollary that value is created only by earning more than the cost of capital, very few companies use performance measures that focus on corporate efficiency in using capital—measures such as return on capital (ROC) or economic value added (EVA)—as the main basis for their top management incentive programs. In this article, the authors begin by documenting the surprisingly limited use of such measures in management incentive plans. Next they analyze three often cited problems—difficulty in retaining managers, discouragement of growth investment, and complexity—that could account for the limited use of such measures. Third and last, they suggest a number of adjustments to standard capital efficiency measures that are designed to address these problems and, in so doing, to give corporate directors more confidence in using measures like EVA to reward and hold managers accountable for value‐adding performance.In illustrating the problems encountered when using such performance measures, the article uses case studies of three long‐time “EVA companies”—Briggs & Stratton, Herman Miller, and Manitowoc—to highlight the difficulty of using a “bonus bank” (or “clawback”) system to hold managers fully accountable for earning a minimum return on capital. After presenting empirical data that shows “delayed productivity” of invested capital, the authors suggest that conventional capital efficiency measures can discourage value‐increasing growth.The article concludes by recommending that although measures like EVA used in combination with negative bonus banks provide the right incentives, EVA capital charges should be phased in gradually to reflect the delayed productivity of capital. At the same time, corporate boards should consider providing bonus bank “relief” when market and industry factors have excessively large negative effects on the performance measures and bonus awards.
The Hybrid Option: A New Approach to Equity Compensation
Authors: Hodak Marc 
Published: June 2009

Equity compensation can provide part of the expected reward needed to attract and retain talent while strengthening the unity of interest between management and its shareholders. But more can be done. Until now, managers and boards have used standard equity instruments such as restricted common stock and at‐the‐money stock options. Boards typically place various restrictions on these instruments to improve retention or alignment, or mix and match them according to taste or fashion. But each of these standard instruments has well‐understood limitations. For example, employee stock options that are granted at the money are worth considerably less, on the day of the grant, to the managers that receive them than to the shareholders of the companies that give them. And the values of both options and restricted stock depend heavily on variables, like the general state of the economy, that have little or nothing to do with managerial performance.An instrument designed specifically for executive compensation can overcome these limitations. More specifically, the author proposes the use of options that are both in‐the‐money—to limit their value‐to‐cost discount—and indexed to industry‐ and market‐wide variables—to tie rewards more directly to firm‐specific performance. Properly designed, such a hybrid instrument could meet all the equity‐based compensation objectives for a given company, greatly simplifying its compensation plans, while improving the balance among the compensation governance criteria of retention, alignment, and cost control.
Shareholder Value Maximization—Is There a Role for Corporate Social Responsibility?
Authors: Martin John , Petty William , Wallace James 
Published: June 2009

Although often viewed as inconsistent with the corporate goal of value maximization, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement can add value by helping companies develop and maintain their reputations for fair dealing with each of their important non‐investor stakeholder groups, including employees, suppliers, and local communities. Such “reputational capital” in turn helps reinforce the commitment of those stakeholders through what amount to informal or implicit contracts—contracts that are often critical to a company's long‐run success.Nevertheless, the importance and difficulty of balancing stakeholder interests against the overarching goal of efficiency and value maximization cannot be overstated. As with any corporate investment, each dollar of investment in a corporate stakeholder group should be justified by at least a dollar of expected return over a finite time horizon. By practicing this kind of “enlightened value maximization,” to borrow Michael Jensen's phrase, management is likely to end up increasing not only its returns to shareholders, but the size of the corporate pie that is divided among all its stakeholders. Viewed in this light, CSR and value maximization have the potential to be complementary undertakings that result in a virtuous circle in which “doing good” helps companies do well, and doing well provides the wherewithal to do more good.
Physicochemical Properties and Antioxidant Capacity of 3 Polysaccharides from Green Tea, Oolong Tea, and Black Tea
Authors: Chen Haixia , Qu Zhishuang , Fu Lingling , Dong Peng , Zhang Xin 
Published: June 2009

ABSTRACT: Three polysaccharide‐rich fractions named GTPS, OTPS, and BTPS were isolated from green tea, oolong tea, and black tea, respectively. Chemical characteristics, glycosidase inhibitory effects, and antioxidant properties of the 3 fractions were compared. Monosaccharides of GTPS were composed of D‐rhamnose, L‐arabinose, D‐xylose, D‐mannose, D‐galactose, and D‐glucose. But there were no xylose and mannose detected in OTPS and BTPS. The molecular weight distributions were decreased from 9.2 to 251.5 KDa to 3.8 to 32.7 KDa with the fermentation of the tea from green tea to black tea. BTPS showed the highest α‐glucosidase inhibitory activity, antioxidant activities on hydroxyl radicals and DPPH radicals. The differences in antioxidant activities and glycosidase inhibitory properties among the 3 polysaccharide‐rich fractions appeared to be related to differences in monosaccharide composition and molecular weight distribution of the polysaccharide.PRACTICAL APPLICATION: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the primary threats to human health due to its increasing prevalence, chronic course, and disabling complications. Control of postprandial hyperglycemia and inhibition of oxidative stress are suggested to be important in the treatment of diabetes. Many efforts had been made to search for effective and safe α‐glucosidase inhibitors and antioxidants from natural materials to develop a physiological functional food or lead compounds for curing diabetes. Coarse tea was used to cure diabetics in people in China and Japan. The hypoglycemic activity increased with the contents of polysaccharide in coarse tea. Many studies have focused on the hypoglycemic activities of tea polysaccharides, but little is known about the glycosidase inhibitory effects of tea polysaccharide. The aim of this study was to find a tea polysaccharide with the best potential for exploitation in curing diabetes.
Salt Reduction in Foods Using Naturally Brewed Soy Sauce
Authors: Kremer Stefanie , Mojet Jozina , Shimojo Ryo 
Published: June 2009

ABSTRACT:  In recent years, health concerns related to salt/sodium chloride consumption have caused an increased demand for salt‐reduced foods. Consequently, sodium chloride (NaCl) reduction in foods has become an important challenge. The more so, since a decrease in NaCl content is often reported to be associated with a decrease in consumer acceptance. The objective of the present study was to investigate whether or not it would be possible to reduce the NaCl content in standard Western European foods by replacing it with naturally brewed soy sauce. Three types of foods were investigated: salad dressing (n = 56), soup (n = 52), and stir‐fried pork (n = 57). In the 1st step, an exchange rate (ER) by which NaCl can be replaced with soy sauce without a significant change in the overall taste intensity was established per product type, by means of alternative forced choice tests. In the 2nd step, the same consumers evaluated 5 samples per product type with varying NaCl and/or soy sauce content on pleasantness and several sensory attributes. The results showed that it was possible to achieve a NaCl reduction in the tested foods of, respectively, 50%, 17%, and 29% without leading to significant losses in either overall taste intensity or product pleasantness. These results suggest that it is possible to replace NaCl in foods with naturally brewed soy sauce without lowering the overall taste intensity and to reduce the total NaCl content in these foods without decreasing their consumer acceptance.PRACTICAL APPLICATION: Health concerns related to salt consumption cause an increased demand for salt‐reduced foods. Consequently, the development of foods with reduced salt content without decreasing the consumer acceptance is an important challenge for the food industry. A new possible salt reduction approach is described in the present article: The replacement of salt with naturally brewed soy sauce.