Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A double-blind, dose-response study of midodrine in neurogenic orthostatic hypotension

Objective: To determine the best therapeutic strategy for the use of midodrine in patients with neurogenic orthostatic hypotension (NOH). Background: Midodrine is a peripherally acting α-adrenergic agonist useful in the treatment of NOH. However, neither the most effective dosage of midodrine nor the required frequency of administration is established. Design/Methods: Midodrine dose-blood pressure response, pharmacokinetics, and duration of action were examined in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, four-way crossover trial. Twenty-five patients with NOH were randomized to receive on successive days placebo or midodrine 2.5, 10, or 20 mg. Blood pressures of patients in the supine and standing positions were measured sequentially. A global assessment of the patient's overall symptom improvement after each leg of the study was performed. Blood levels of midodrine and its active metabolite, desglymidodrine, were assayed. Results: Midodrine significantly increased standing systolic blood pressure, with the increase peaking at 1 hour. There was a significant linear relation between midodrine dosage and mean systolic blood pressure. The mean score for global improvement of symptoms was significantly higher for midodrine (10 and 20 mg) compared with placebo. The half-life of desglymidodrine was ∼4 hours. Conclusion: A 10-mg dose of midodrine prescribed two to three times daily is effective in increasing orthostatic blood pressure and ameliorating symptoms in patients with NOH.
Predictors of uncontrolled hyperlipidaemia in high-risk ambulatory patients in primary care

ABSTRACT Objective: To determine (a) the proportion of patients at high risk of cardiovascular events who achieve low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) goals as recommended by the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel (NCEP ATP III) guidelines, and (b) the predictors of poor LDL-C control. Methods: Two open-label, prospective, non-randomised, observational studies (study 1 with n = 19 194 patients, predominantly with coronary artery disease (CHD); study 2 with n = 19 484 patients, predominantly with diabetes mellitus (DM)). Patients received, usually after statin pretreatment, ezetimibe 10 mg plus simvastatin as fixed-dose combinations over 3 months. Bivariate and multivariate regression analysis was performed to identify factors associated with poor LDL-C control. Results: At study end, 38 % (up from 4.7 % at baseline) of CHD and 35 % (up from 3.3 % at baseline) of diabetic patients achieved the target LDL value < 100 mg/dl (2.6 mmol/l) after treatment with a fixed-dose ezetimibe–simvastatin combination. In both studies, concomitant atherosclerotic disease was associated with good control. Conversely, factors associated with poor control were, among others, high baseline LDL-C values, pretreatment with certain statins, and (in the DM study) high HbA1c, and high body mass index. Conclusion: Under real world, general practice conditions, a substantial proportion of high-risk patients with CHD and/or DM met LDL-C target levels on dual cholesterol inhibition with ezetimibe/simvastatin. A limited number of easily recognisable factors allow physicians to identify high risk patients whose LDL-C is likely to be difficult to control. Early identification of this patient group may have profound clinical benefits in general practice by enabling specific early interventions such as counselling on physical activity, dietary support and/or follow up visits to the GP.
Minimum controller substructure for generic arbitrary pole placement: Multicommodity flow and TSP based formulations

This paper deals with finding a `least interaction' controller that generically achieves pole placement, given a actuator-sensor interaction possibility for the controller. The structure of the plant and the controller are modeled as an undirected and bipartite graph. Assuming that the plant/controller structures are specified, we find a minimum controller substructure within the specified controller structure such that the controller substructure allows generic eigenvalue assignability. The minimum is in the sense that the bipartite graph consisting of the proposed controller has the minimum number of edges. The complexity of a brute-force algorithm to identify a minimum controller substructure would be exponential and hence we propose two formulations for solving this problem, using recent results about equivalence of generic pole-assignability and covering of plant edges using cycles. The first uses multi-commodity flow networks to include all plant edges in some cycle using the least number of controller edges. We show that an integer solution to this formulation gives a minimum controller substructure for arbitrary pole placement problem. Since the problem of finding a feasible integer flow in multicommodity networks is NP-complete, there is ample reason that identifying a minimum controller substructure is NP-hard. The second formulation uses the framework of travelling salesman with profits (TSP with profits) to cover all vertices of the bipartite graph by cycles using the least number of controller edges. The TSP-with-profits problem too belongs to the class of NP-hard problems. We show that our formulation is equivalent to the so-called Generalized Travelling Salesman Problem (GTSP) thus allowing branch-cut algorithms developed for GTSP problems.
Preliminary observations using endocrine markers of pituitary venous dilution during bilateral simultaneous inferior petrosal sinus catheterization in Cushing's syndrome: Is combined CRF and TRH stimulation of value?

OBJECTIVE We determined whether the measurement of hormones in pituitary blood permits correction for dilution by non‐pituitary blood during bilateral simultaneous inferior petrosal sinus blood sampling in Cushing's syndrome. DESIGN Bilateral simultaneous inferior petrosal sinus blood sampling was performed after combined hCRF and TRH stimulation. Peak ACTH concentrations were corrected for the TSH and PRL inter‐sinus ratio, assuming uniform secretion of both hormones into each inferior petrosal sinus.
Liberal arts colleges and liberal arts education : new evidence on impacts

Executive Summary. Foreword. Acknowledgments. Background and Warrant for the Study. Review of Existing Evidence. Liberal Arts Colleges: Past and Present. Evidence About the Impacts of Liberal Arts Colleges. Summary. The Study. Datasets Analyzed. Sample Descriptions. Effects of Liberal Arts Colleges on Good Practices in Undergraduate Education. Data and Analyses. Results. Total Effects. Direct Effects. Conditional Effects. Timing of Effects. Effects of Liberal Arts Colleges on Intellectual and Personal Development. Data and Analyses. Results. Total Effects. Direct Effects. Additional Analyses. Timing of Impacts. Conditional Effects. Effects of an Institution's Liberal Arts Emphasis and Students' Liberal Arts Experiences on Intellectual and Personal Development. Data and Analyses. Results. Liberal Arts Emphasis I. Liberal Arts Emphasis II. Liberal Arts Experiences. Timing of Impacts. Conditional Effects. Long-Term Effects of Liberal Arts Colleges. Data and Analyses. Results: Total and Direct Effects. Results: Conditional Effects. Impacts of Liberal Arts Colleges and Liberal Arts Education: A Summary. Good Practices. Intellectual and Personal Development. Long-Term Effects. Conditional Effects. Conclusion. Notes. Appendix A: Operational Definitions of Variables. Appendix B: Statistical Controls Introduced in the Analysis of Different Study Outcomes. References. Name Index. Subject Index. About the Authors.
Clinical and anatomical spectrum in XX sex reversed patients. Relationship to the presence of Y specific DNA‐sequences

OBJECTIVE Testicular differentiation can occur in the absence of the Y chromosome giving XX sex‐reversed males. Although Y chromosomal sequences can be detected in the majority of male subjects with a 46,XX karyotype, several studies have shown that approximately 10% of patients lack Y material including the SRY gene. The aim of this study was to see if the classification of XX sex‐reversed individuals into three groups, Y‐DNA‐positive phenotypically normal XX males, Y‐DNA‐negative XX males with genital ambiguities and Y‐DNA‐negative true hermaphrodites can be applied to our cases.
Accounting Faculty Teaching Ratings : Are They Lower Because Accounting Classes Are More Difficult ?

This study examines two important issues; first, whether accounting professors earn lower ratings than professors in other disciplines and second, whether those lower ratings are related to students’ perceptions of how easy those professors and classes are. The results of the statistical analyses indicate that accounting students perceive their professors to be significantly more difficult than students in nonaccounting disciplines and this perception is related to lower teaching evaluations. The results should be of interest to any accounting professor who is preparing performance review or promotion and tenure applications and is required to include student generated faculty evaluations in their applications.
Clustering correlated, sparse data streams to estimate a localized housing price index

Understanding how housing values evolve over time is important to policy makers, consumers and real estate professionals. Existing methods for constructing housing indices are computed at a coarse spatial granularity, such as metropolitan regions, which can mask or distort price dynamics apparent in local markets, such as neighborhoods and census tracts. A challenge in moving to estimates at, for example, the census tract level is the scarcity of spatiotemporally localized house sales observations. Our work aims to address this challenge by leveraging observations from multiple census tracts discovered to have correlated valuation dynamics. Our proposed Bayesian nonparametric approach builds on the framework of latent factor models to enable a flexible, data-driven method for inferring the clustering of correlated census tracts. We explore methods for scalability and parallelizability of computations, yielding a housing valuation index at the level of census tract rather than zip code, and on a monthly basis rather than quarterly. Our analysis is provided on a large Seattle metropolitan housing dataset.
Interleukin-1beta costimulates interferon-gamma production by human natural killer cells.

Natural killer (NK) cells are an early source of immunoregulatory cytokines during the innate immune response to viruses, bacteria, and parasites. NK cells provide requisite IFN-gamma to monocytes for the elimination of obligate intracellular pathogens. IL-1beta is a pro-inflammatory cytokine produced by monocytes (i.e. a monokine) during the early immune response to infection, but its role in promoting human NK cell IFN-gamma production is unknown. The current study examines the ability of the monokine IL-1beta, plus IL-12, to costimulate IFN-gamma production by resting CD56(bright) and CD56(dim) human NK cell subsets. CD56(bright) NK cells stimulated with IL-1beta plus IL-12 produced abundant IFN-gamma protein, while little IFN-gamma was produced in identical cultures of CD56(dim) cells. In addition, upon activation with IL-1beta, CD56(bright) NK cells exhibited considerably greater phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinases p42/44 as compared to CD56(dim) NK cells. Quantitative PCR analysis showed brisk induction of IFN-gamma gene expression following costimulation with IL-1beta plus IL-12 in CD56(bright) NK cells, but intracellular flow cytometry revealed that only a fraction (42+/-2.3%) of CD56(bright) NK cells account for this high IFN-gamma production. These data suggest that the monokine IL-1beta is a potent costimulus of IFN-gamma production by a subset of NK cells following infectious insult.
Voluntary Agreements in Environmental Protection - Experiences in Germany and Future Perspectives

A trend towards softer regulation, especially in the form of negotiated environmental agreements, is observable in national and international environmental policies. Such agreements are controversial, because there are fears that government will relinquish its responsibility for environmental protection. This paper analyses recent experiences with voluntary agreements in Germany. Topical German examples that have prompted public debates include the takeback agreement for cars, the voluntary agreement made by a number of industries on a C02 reduction by the year 2005 and the voluntary agreement made by the automobile industry on the development of energy-efficient cars. Proponents of voluntary agreements argue that this instrument provides incentives to the business sector for the development of efficient, innovative and environmentally-friendly solutions. Analysing the examples mentioned above, we conclude that it is hard to detect solutions derserving such attributes. These agreements are unlikely to produce results that go beyond what industry would have done in any case and they avoid using economic incentives. The agreements are' non-binding and unenforceable, with the negotiating process leading to a watering down of the environmental goals government had originally aimed at. A preference for negotiated solutions on principle, as currently espoused by the Federal Government in Germany, seems to be counterproductive. If the government clearly signals its willingness to refrain from using regulatory or economic instruments in favour of industry agreements, it weakens its negotiating position. The government also limits its options should the implementation of the agreement prove unsatisfactory. Government needs to be 'in control in order to leave its choice of policy instruments open and to be flexible. In a last step, we derive some general conclusions concerning reasonable strategies and applications of voluntary agreements within the European Union.
Outsourcing and strategy in Spanish town halls: a field study

Purpose – This study seeks to analyse the links between strategies, structures and processes in the case of the largest Spanish town halls, using the Miles and Snow's models about organisational strategies, and asking the following questions: “What is the situation of municipal services' outsourcing in the largest Spanish town halls? ”; “Do Spanish town halls follow the strategies suggested in Miles and Snow's model? ”; and “Is there a relationship between the strategic position adopted by town halls and their stance on outsourcing? ”. Design/methodology/approach – In order to achieve these aims a questionnaire was administered to the human resource managers in the town halls of the largest Spanish cities.Findings – The paper finds that outsourcing is a complement, which seeks to improve the services delivered, and local institutions do not resort to it due to a lack of internal resources but as a way to complement their own capabilities.Originality/value – The paper has identified three distinct strategic pr.
MILITARY EXPENDITURE AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: EVIDENCE FROM SYSTEM GMM ESTIMATES

The effect of military expenditure on economic growth in developing countries has been investigated by many empirical literatures. However, there is little consensus of that effect and the diversity seems to come from the use of different models and different estimators. This article applies the Augmented Solow Growth Model to examine the influence of military expenditure on economic growth for 35 developing countries over the period of 1975–2009. By using the system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimators, empirical results indicate that defence has a negative and significant effect on economic growth in the sample countries.
Two-Level Effects of Interorganizational Network Collaboration on Graduate Satisfaction

In the public management literature, network effects are studied primarily at two levels: (a) the level of the interorganizational network as a whole and (b) the level of individual organizations’ networking behavior. This article combines the two levels within one theoretical framework and derives hypotheses about network effects on organizational performance for each level of analysis. The hypotheses are tested on a data set of five interorganizational networks in Dutch higher education. Within these five intercollege networks, we study graduates’ satisfaction with the educational program offered by 91 colleges for cohorts in the years 2002 to 2005 (n = 18,159). The results show that intercollege networks with clear patterns of coordination have significantly more satisfied graduates than networks of colleges characterized by either highly dense or sparse relations. For individual colleges, the results indicate that colleges’ participation in subnetworks positively affects graduate satisfaction, whereas colleges’ networking activity (the number of relationships with other colleges) does not affect graduate satisfaction.
A hierarchical regionalization of Japanese prefectures using 1972 interprefectural migration flows

Slater P. B. (1976) A hierarchical regionalization of Japanese prefectures using 1972 interprefectural migration flows, Reg. Studies 10, 123–132. A methodology for utilizing an interregional transaction flow table to construct a hierarchical system of regions is presented. The square matrix is first adjusted by a biproportional procedure to possess uniform row and column sums. A series of increasingly sparse digraphs can then be associated with the table by raising threshold levels which are used to convert it into (0, 1) matrices. The strong components of these digraphs (Boolean adjacency matrices) can be hierarchically arranged. 1972 Japanese interprefectural migration data are examined in this manner. Several officially recognized regions (chiho)—Shikoku, Chugoku, Tohoku, and Kyushu—are readily distinguished, since they correspond to strong components which are stable over a wide range of thresholds. The chiho of Kanto, Chubu and Kinki are not identified, however. The Seto-Uchi area, San-in and several.
Public service motivation and job performance in public utilities: An investigation in a Taiwan sample

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to examine the predictive power of each dimension of public service motivation (PSM) on job performance (JP) in a Taiwan sample. Design/methodology/approach – The present study adopted a cross-sectional approach using a large-scale questionnaire survey in Taiwan (N=2,239). Participants from six utility sectors in two infrastructure-relevant ministries (Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) and Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA)), with heterogeneous sectors, were recruited, including representatives of the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA), Chunghwa Post (CHP), Taiwan Power Company (TPC), CPC Corporation, Taiwan (CPC), Taiwan Sugar Corporation (TSC), and Taiwan Water Supply Corporation (TWSC). The sample consisted of 2,239 public employees from six public utilities. Findings – Although the results suggest that the PSM observed in western society also exists in the Taiwanese public utilities context, the self-sacrifice (SS) and the compassion (COM) .
Hole Transport and Recovery Characteristics of SiO2 Gate Insulators

The transient response, or flat-band voltage recovery, in a number of pedigreed SiO2 gate insulator MOS capacitors following exposure to a pulsed 13-MeV electron beam was studied as a function of time, temperature, and applied bias. A quantitative comparison of the response characteristics of the different oxides is made. It is found generally that the response consists of two stages. The first (early time) stage in most cases encompasses most of the recovery and is dominated by hole transport through the insulator film to the interface. This hole transport recovery stage in all the oxides studied is well described by the stochastic model of hopping transport based on a continuous time random walk used previously in the analysis of hole transport in SiO2. It is further shown that all the main features of the hole transport are consistent with a model of the holes moving via polaron hopping between localized sites in the SiO2. The second or long-term stage of recovery commences after cessation of the hole transport in the oxide and is found to vary significantly in its importance and time of onset among the various oxides. This stage involves a radiation-induced buildup of interface states and possibly, in some cases, an annealing of a trapped-hole distribution near the SiO2/Si interface.
New Estimates of the Incidence of the Payroll Tax

The purpose of this study is to take a somewhat different look at the issue of the shifting of the payroll tax for Social Security (OASDHI) than has been done in the previous literature. The novel aspects are: 1) We concentrate only on the degree to which workers' earnings are affected by the share of the tax paid by employers; 2) We base the study on data describing the behavior of individuals rather than the more aggregated units (industries or entire economies) that have been used in other studies;' 3) Finally, the nature of our data allows us to study the dynamics of the process of tax shifting and thus discover how rapidly, as well as how much of, any payroll tax increase is shifted back onto workers.
The new Keynesian Phillips curve: endogeneity and misspecification

The wrong or insignificant sign of the forcing variable in the new Keynesian Phillips curve estimations may be a result of the endogeneity of the labour share and misspecification of real marginal cost in the baseline model. We address the misspecification of real marginal cost by formulating a broad measure that features the labour share, output gap and supply shock variables. The endogeneity of the labour share is addressed by using an appropriate lag of the labour share in the Phillips curve. Reduced-form evidence from five developed and five emerging market economies support the empirical validity of the NKPC.
Economic Effect of Labor Unions

This article presents an overview of research from outside Japan involving the effect of labor unions on wages, employment separation rate, employment adjustment, and productivity. It also discusses the outcomes and problems of research from Japan. Recently, more data regarding the effect of labor unions on wages has become available for both males and females. With regard to the effect on separation rate, much research suggests that labor unions tend to hold separation rate down; however, it is not clear what working conditions are impacted or contribute to a lowered rate of separation. Although the fluctuation in employment among Japanese labor unions is fairly small, employment levels are reduced when companies experience periods of unprofitability. When it comes to research involving the impact of unions on productivity, the data available in Japan are insufficient for adequate study.