ITC Injury Determination and the Abuse of Antidumping Law: Evidence from the United States Manufacturing Industries

International Relations/Trade,

The upregulation of thiamine (vitamin B1) biosynthesis in Arabidopsis thaliana seedlings under salt and osmotic stress conditions is mediated by abscisic acid at the early stages of this stress response

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recent reports suggest that vitamin B₁(thiamine) participates in the processes underlying plant adaptations to certain types of abiotic and biotic stress, mainly oxidative stress. Most of the genes coding for enzymes involved in thiamine biosynthesis in <it>Arabidopsis thaliana </it>have been identified. In our present study, we examined the expression of thiamine biosynthetic genes, of genes encoding thiamine diphosphate-dependent enzymes and the levels of thiamine compounds during the early (sensing) and late (adaptation) responses of Arabidopsis seedlings to oxidative, salinity and osmotic stress. The possible roles of plant hormones in the regulation of the thiamine contribution to stress responses were also explored.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The expression of Arabidopsis genes involved in the thiamine diphosphate biosynthesis pathway, including that of <it>THI1</it>, <it>THIC</it>, <it>TH1 </it>and <it>TPK</it>, was analyzed for 48 h in seedlings subjected to NaCl or sorbitol treatment. These genes were found to be predominantly up-regulated in the early phase (2-6 h) of the stress response. The changes in these gene transcript levels were further found to correlate with increases in thiamine and its diphosphate ester content in seedlings, as well as with the enhancement of gene expression for enzymes which require thiamine diphosphate as a cofactor, mainly α-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase, pyruvate dehydrogenase and transketolase. In the case of the phytohormones including the salicylic, jasmonic and abscisic acids which are known to be involved in plant stress responses, only abscisic acid was found to significantly influence the expression of thiamine biosynthetic genes, the thiamine diphosphate levels, as well as the expression of genes coding for main thiamine diphosphate-dependent enzymes. Using Arabidopsis mutant plants defective in abscisic acid production, we demonstrate that this phytohormone is important in the regulation of <it>THI1 </it>and <it>THIC </it>gene expression during salt stress but that the regulatory mechanisms underlying the osmotic stress response are more complex.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>On the basis of the obtained results and earlier reported data, a general model is proposed for the involvement of the biosynthesis of thiamine compounds and thiamine diphosphate-dependent enzymes in abiotic stress sensing and adaptation processes in plants. A possible regulatory role of abscisic acid in the stress sensing phase is also suggested by these data.</p

Pair formation and collapse in imbalanced Fermion populations with unequal masses

We present an exact Quantum Monte Carlo study of the effect of unequal masses on pair formation in Fermionic systems with population imbalance loaded into optical lattices. We have considered three forms of the attractive interaction and find in all cases that the system is unstable and collapses as the mass difference increases and that the ground state becomes an inhomogeneous collapsed state. We also address the question of canonical vs grand canonical ensemble and its role, if any, in stabilizing certain phases

Like trainer, like bot? Inheritance of bias in algorithmic content moderation

The internet has become a central medium through which `networked publics' express their opinions and engage in debate. Offensive comments and personal attacks can inhibit participation in these spaces. Automated content moderation aims to overcome this problem using machine learning classifiers trained on large corpora of texts manually annotated for offence. While such systems could help encourage more civil debate, they must navigate inherently normatively contestable boundaries, and are subject to the idiosyncratic norms of the human raters who provide the training data. An important objective for platforms implementing such measures might be to ensure that they are not unduly biased towards or against particular norms of offence. This paper provides some exploratory methods by which the normative biases of algorithmic content moderation systems can be measured, by way of a case study using an existing dataset of comments labelled for offence. We train classifiers on comments labelled by different demographic subsets (men and women) to understand how differences in conceptions of offence between these groups might affect the performance of the resulting models on various test sets. We conclude by discussing some of the ethical choices facing the implementers of algorithmic moderation systems, given various desired levels of diversity of viewpoints amongst discussion participants.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, 9th International Conference on Social Informatics (SocInfo 2017), Oxford, UK, 13--15 September 2017 (forthcoming in Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Socioeconomic status and pulmonary function, transition from childhood to adulthood: Cross-sectional results from the polish part of the HAPIEE study

Objective Previous studies have reported inverse associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and lung function, but less is known about whether pulmonary function is affected by SES changes. We aimed to describe the relationship of changes of SES between childhood and adulthood with pulmonary function. Design Cross-sectional study. Participants The study sample included 4104 men and women, aged 45-69 years, residents of Krakow, participating in the Polish part of the Health, Alcohol and Psychosocial Factors in Eastern Europe Project. Main outcome Forced expiratory volume (FEV 1) and forced vital capacity (FVC) were assessed by the standardised spirometry procedure. Participants were classified into three categories of SES (low, moderate or high) based on information on parent's education, housing standard during childhood, own education, employment status, household amenities and financial status. Results The adjusted difference in mean FVC between persons with low and high adulthood SES was 100 mL (p=0.005) in men and 100 mL (p<0.001) in women; the differences in mean FEV 1 were 103 mL (p<0.001) and 80 mL (p<0.001), respectively. Upward social mobility and moderate or high SES at both childhood and adulthood were related to significantly higher FEV 1 and FVC compared with low SES at both childhood and adulthood or downward social mobility. Conclusions Low SES over a life course was associated with the lowest lung function. Downward social mobility was associated with a poorer pulmonary function, while upward mobility or life course and moderate or high SES were associated with a better pulmonary function

Secondary prevention of coronary artery disease in contemporary clinical practice

Background: The highest priority in preventive cardiology was given to patients with estab-lished coronary artery disease (CAD). The aim of the study was to assess the implementation of guidelines for secondary prevention in everyday clinical practice by evaluating control of the main risk factors and the cardioprotective medication prescription rates for patients, following their hospitalization for CAD. Methods: Five hospitals with cardiology departments serving the city and its surround-ing districts in southern part of Poland participated in the study. Consecutive patients aged ≤ 80 years, hospitalized from January 1 2010 to April 31 2012 due to an acute coronary syndrome or for a myocardial revascularization procedure were recruited and interviewed 6–18 months after hospitalization. Results: The medical records of 595 patients (mean age: 62.8 ± 9.0 years, 397 men and 198 women) were reviewed and included in the analyses. Proportions of medical records with available information on risk factors were high with the exception of total cholesterol levels as well as weight and height measurements, which were available in less than 80 % of the hospita

Cardiac rehabilitation in real life

Participation in cardiac rehabilitation programs (CRPs) improves prognosis in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). However, not much is known about the effectiveness of CRP in real life. The aim of this analysis was to identify factors related to the referral to CRP following hospitalization for CAD and estimate the effectiveness of the programs in real life. Medical records of 1061 consecutive patients aged ≤80 years, hospitalized due to an acute coronary syndrome or for a myocardial revascularization procedure in 5 hospitals serving the city and surrounding counties, were reviewed and 611 patients were interviewed 6–18 months posthospitalization. Of 611 patients participating in the interview, 212 (34.7%) were referred following the hospitalization to a center providing CRP. Age, hospitalization in a teaching hospital, and index diagnosis were independently related to being granted a referral. Among the referred patients, 86.3% participated in the CRP. Participation in CRP was related to the lower probability of having high total cholesterol (23% vs 32%, P < 0.05), fasting glucose (11% vs 18%, P = 0.05), Hb(A1c) (8% vs 16%, P = 0.05), and body mass index (27% vs 37%, P < 0.05). Generally, the effect of the CRP was significant in participants with a higher education, but not in those with a low education level. Other factors were not significantly related to the effectiveness of CRP. This study shows that CRPs are effective, but underused in Poland. The participant's education level may influence the effectiveness of CRP. Therefore, in order to increase the impact of CRP, the content of such programs should vary depending on the education level of the participants