Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CURRENT CONCEPTS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF UVEITIC MACULAR EDEMA

Devising treatment strategies for uveitic macular edema (UME) is challenging because the UME can persist even when the uveitic inflammation has been controlled by immunosuppressive agents. Increasing systemic immunosuppressive treatment may not lead to improvement of edema, and adjunctive therapy, often with corticosteroids, is frequently needed. Published reports describe various agents for UME, but there is no consensus as to which treatments are preferred. A Medline search was performed for clinical studies of the treatment of UME, and the Web site www.clinicaltrials. gov was consulted to see if there were relevant clinical trials. This article highlights results from those searches. The evidence level is overall low (usually level 2 or 3) for the treatment of macular edema in uveitis. Most studies showed no more than slight benefit to treatment possibly because visual improvement was limited by damage from prior edema. A variety of corticosteroids and various routes of administration have been studied. More recently biologic agents and other immunomodulatory drugs have been employed. Improved study designs with randomization, sufficient sample size, and follow-up are necessary to define the optimal management of UME. Outcome mea
Corporate Governance and Disclosure Practices of Indian Firms: An Industry Perspective

Corporate governance stands for responsible business management geared towards long-term value creation. Good corporate governance is a key driver of sustainable corporate growth and long-term competitive advantage. It focuses on a company’s structure and processes to ensure fair, responsible, transparent and accountable corporate behavior. This study attempts to examine the impact of the nature of sector or industry on corporate governance and disclosure practices of firms by identifying and testing the empirical evidence for such relationship for firms listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in the form of S&P BSE sector indices. The sample firms represent different sectors, like auto, metal, oil and gas, consumer durables, capital goods, FMCG, healthcare, IT, and power. The findings reveal that no significant correlation exists between the industry type and the level of disclosure in the Indian context.
Malaysian Politics: The Second Generation

This study traces the major political events in Malaysia during two decades, focusing on political elites, their interaction, leadership styles, and the public policies emerging from responses to the problems and demands generated by an ethnically divided society. The author traces the major events and policy initiatives of three second-generation administrations: Abdul Razak, Hussein Onn, and Mahathir Mohamad.
Calcium-binding properties of SSP-5, the Streptococcus gordonii M5 receptor for salivary agglutinin

Streptococcus gordonii M5 expresses a lectin on its surface (SSP-5) which binds to human salivary agglutinin (SAG). This interaction requires sialic acid residues of SAG and divalent cations and may mediate the colonization of oral tissues by this organism. In this report, we show that the binding of SAG to SSP-5 requires calcium and that SSP-5 is a high-affinity calcium-binding protein. SAG-mediated aggregation of S. gordonii M5 was inhibited by 1 mM EDTA, and the restoration of aggregation occurred only upon the readdition of calcium. To ascertain the level at which calcium exerts its effects, the calcium-binding properties of SSP-5 were evaluated by using a 45Ca binding assay. In addition, a kinetic analysis of calcium binding was carried out by using fura2, a fluorescent calcium-binding dye. These analyses showed that SSP-5 is a high-affinity calcium-binding protein that binds 1 mol of calcium per mol of protein and has a dissociation constant of 0.45 +/- 0.2 microM. The calcium-binding capacity of SSP-5 was also calculated independently to be 1.0 +/- 0.2 mol of Ca per mol of SSP-5 by column chromatography on Sephadex G-25 equilibrated with 10 microM 45Ca. To localize the calcium binding site of SSP-5, a series of C-terminal deletion mutants were expressed in Escherichia coli and evaluated for calcium-binding activity. Deletion of the 250 C-terminal residues of SSP-5 had little effect on calcium binding. However, deletion of residues 1168 to 1250 resulted in the loss of calcium-binding activity, suggesting that this region is important for calcium binding by SSP-5.
Changing effects of monetary policy in the US–evidence from a time-varying coefficient VAR

We estimate a time-varying coefficient VAR model for the US economy to analyse (i) if the effect of monetary policy on output has been changing systematically over time, and (ii) if monetary policy has asymmetric effects over the business cycle. We find that the impact of monetary policy shocks has been gradually declining over the sample period (1962 to 2002), as some theories of the monetary transmission mechanism imply. In addition, our results indicate that the effects of monetary policy are greater in a recession than in a boom.
Analyst Forecasts and the Cross Section of European Stock Returns

We examine revisions to earnings forecasts by equity analysts and their role in predicting stock returns. We provide evidence that European stocks with net upward revised forecasts earn higher future returns than otherwise similar stocks. This effect is not concentrated in small stocks, stocks with low analyst coverage, or stocks with low book-to-market ratios. We find differences in the return continuation patterns of stocks with upward versus downward revisions, namely, bad news travels quickly, but good news travels slowly. This result is consistent with investors' attaching greater significance to poor earnings forecasts, but adopting a wait-and-see approach to good news.
General practitioners' procedures for sexual history taking and treating sexual dysfunction in primary care.

INTRODUCTION Good history-taking skills are the first step towards achieving a correct diagnosis of sexual dysfunction (SD). However, studies show most general practitioners (GPs) do not take the initiative to ask the patient about SD, and when diagnosing a condition, they tend to give preference to their own criteria over clinical guidelines. AIM The aim of this study is to characterize GPs' attitudes towards taking sexual history, identifying its frequency and focus, and to describe GPs' diagnostics and therapeutic approaches including the use of clinical guidelines, exploring patients' and doctor-related differences. METHODS Cross-sectional study using confidential self-administrated questionnaires applied to GPs working in primary healthcare units in the Lisbon region. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Data concerning GPs' consultation of guidelines, active exploration of SD in male and in female patients, and focus on sexual history taking was collected. RESULTS Of the 50 participants (73.5% response rate), 15.5% actively ask their patients about SD. The main reasons for asking patients about their sexuality are diabetes (84.0%), prescription of medication with adverse effects on sexuality (78.0%), and family planning (72.0%), the latter being a significantly more frequent reason for GPs with 20 or less years of practice. Routine sexual history taking (22.0%) appears as one of the least mentioned motives. The percentage of appointments with active exploration of SD was positively associated with guidelines' consultation, as well as considering the specialty as a good source of information and having longer appointments when SD is mentioned. However, 76.0% report not having consulted any guidelines in the previous year. Lack of time (31.6%) and low accessibility (25.0%) were referred to as the main reasons for not consulting guidelines. CONCLUSIONS Routine sexual history taking and consultation of guidelines about SD are not yet a generalized practice in primary care. Data should be interpreted with caution as they are self-reported. Further objective measurement such as direct observation or clinical files consultation should be implemented.
Is There a Link Between Money Illusion and Homeowners’ Expectations of Housing Prices?

Money illusion is a behavioral bias in which a person thinks in terms of nominal rather than real values. This article reports homeowners’ responses to a survey designed to measure the extent of money illusion as well as homeowners’ expectations regarding home valuations. Our survey respondents suffer from money illusion, yet they have reasonable expectations of home prices. Our analysis did not identify any unique individual characteristic that correlates with homeowners’ choices and suggests that the relationship between money illusion and mispricing is subtle and multifaceted.
Flight-to-Liquidity, Market Uncertainty, and the Actions of Mutual Fund Investors

We explore the trading decisions of equity mutual funds during ten periods of extreme market uncertainty. We find that mutual funds reduced their aggregate holdings of illiquid stocks. Exploring the drivers behind this result reveals that this is mainly driven by larger withdrawals from funds that hold less liquid stocks. We further find that the sell-off of illiquid stocks occurred only after initial deterioration in market conditions, consistent with retail investors’ response to bad performance. At a broader level, this shows that mutual funds consumed liquidity during periods where liquidity was most valuable. Moreover, the fact that fund managers traded in response to these withdrawals suggests a potentially magnifying channel for the drop in illiquid stock prices, also known as flight-to-liquidity.
The Challenging But Promising Future of Industrial Relations: Developing Theory and Method in Context-Sensitive Research

Industrial relations (IR) in the UK are often seen as being in a state of some disarray. Yet analytical advances can also be detected. This article takes one part of IR, context-sensitive research, to suggest ways of building on such advances. Its focus is the intellectual core of the subject, and not its institutional position. The particular route identified is to link IR to the programme of critical realism and thereby to make methodological progress and strengthen links with social science. Policy relevance may also be enhanced. Whether IR's possibilities are realised remains uncertain, and whether an intellectual programme leads to institutional advance is even harder to predict.
Capital Structure and its Determinants in New Zealand Firms

The current study aims to empirically explore the relationship between firm characteristics, corporate governance and capital structure in New Zealand's large listed companies. Eight years of data for 40 firms listed on the NZX50 Stock Exchange, are collected and observations are analysed using a conditional quantile regression. This study finds firm-specific characteristics rather than corporate governance variables play a significant role in determining firm leverage levels. The results indicate that finance policies need to vary across firm type and firm characteristics, and should match with the different borrowing requirements of listed firms.
Acoustic Output as Measured by Thermal and Mechanical Indices during Fetal Nuchal Translucency Ultrasound Examinations

Objective: Nuchal translucency (NT), performed between 11+0 and 13+6 weeks’ gestation as part of a screening test for fetal chromosomal abnormalities, involves relatively steady ultrasound scanning of the fetus. The present study was aimed at measuring the acoustic output, as expressed by thermal index (TI) and mechanical index (MI), during routine NT examinations. Methods: A prospective, observational study was conducted in patients undergoing routine NT screening. Examinations were performed between 11+0 and 13+6 weeks’ gestation. Fetuses with anomalies were excluded from the analysis. Data were collected by an obstetrician, including duration of the examination, and each MI and TI during ultrasound examinations. Sonographers were unaware of the data being sought. Results: A total of 50 ultrasound NT examinations were evaluated. Mean gestational age was 12.3 ± 0.6 weeks. Mean duration of the ultrasound examination was 11.6 ± 4.2 min. There were 109 variations of the TI during the examinations. Mean TI was 0.2 ± 0.1; the median was 0.2, with a range of 0.1–0.7. There were 105 variations of the MI during the examinations. Mean MI was 1.1 ± 0.1 (median 1.1, range 0.7–1.3). Mean NT was 1.4 ± 0.4 mm. Conclusions: Acoustic exposure levels during NT ultrasound examination, as expressed by TI and MI, are generally low.
A Markov Model of Switching-Regime ARCH

In this article I present a new approach to model more realistically the variability of financial time series. I develop a Markov-ARCH model that incorporates the features of both Hamilton's switching-regime model and Engle's autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (ARCH) model to examine the issue of volatility persistence in the monthly excess returns of the three-month treasury bill. The issue can be resolved by taking into account occasional shifts in the asymptotic variance of the Markov-ARCH process that cause the spurious persistence of the volatility process. I identify two periods during which there is a regime shift, the 1974:2–1974:8 period associated with the oil shock and the 1979:9–1982:8 period associated with the Federal Reserve's policy change. The variance approached asymptotically in these two episodes is more than 10 times as high as the asymptotic variance for the remainder of the sample. I conclude that regime shifts have a greater impact on the properties of the data, and I ca.
Producer Liability and Competition Policy When Firms Are Bound by a Common Industry Reputation

Abstract We contrast the laissez-faire regime with the regime of strict producer liability and draw the implications for competition policy in a setting where oligopolistic firms cannot differentiate themselves from rivals but rather are bound by a common industry reputation for product safety. We show that, first, unlike in the traditional products liability model, firms’ incentives to invest in precaution depend on market structure. Second, depending on the magnitude of expected damages awarded by the courts, laissez-faire can welfare dominate strict producer liability. Third, the relationship between social welfare and industry size, and hence the role for competition policy, depends on the institutional regime governing the industry. Under some circumstances, restricting industry size is unambiguously welfare-enhancing.
Shrinking Core, Expanding Periphery: The Relational Architecture of High-Performing Organizations

This article examines how firms find pathways to high performance with a simultaneous focus on their top and bottom lines by aggressively developing and managing their relationships with key stakeholders. Top-performing firms are shrinking their core while at once expanding their periphery. At the same time that they are contracting their organizational centers and outsourcing increasing portions of their activities, these firms are extending their organizational borders by trying to provide customers with greater sets of products and services. As companies refocus, they have become increasingly dependent on reinforcing mutually beneficial ties to four sets of critical stakeholders: customers, suppliers, alliance partners, and intra-organizational business units. In each of these relationship dimensions, successful firms work their way up a ladder in which they intensify their collaborative efforts with that particular constituent. This phenomenon, which is evident across an array of industries, is one of the hallmarks of a new operating model—the relationship-centered organization.
How Political Institutions Determine Corporate Governance Reforms: The Polity, Law and Corporate Practices in the Case of Switzerland

The aim of this article is to contribute to our understanding of the role that political institutions play in the reform processes of national corporate governance regimes. I argue that existing theories are limited in that they conceive of political institutions' impact on corporate governance largely in terms of a deterministic influence on the political coalitions that emerge and on the policy outcomes. Based on the analysis of the paradigmatic case of a consensual democracy – Switzerland – I show that the consensual polity does not directly determine the outcome of a reform process, but rather the direction of causality between legal changes and changes in practices as well as the nature of the changes. Consensual polities require large parliamentary majorities for legal change to happen. Therefore, corporate practices are likely to change before legal rules and less demanding forms of institutional change, such as ‘layering’, are favoured.
Stock Market and Investment Goods Prices: Implications for Macroeconomics

Stock market prices, a measure of the marginal cost of installed capital, are procyclical. Yet, prices of investment goods, the main input into new installed capital, are countercyclical. We exploit this information to identify the driving forces of the business cycle and the nature of capital installation costs. In our model installation costs are increasing in the growth of investment, and the business cycle is driven by permanent investment-specific technology shocks and transitory neutral technology shocks. When calibrated to the capital price observations, the model does well at accounting for the main features of asset returns and the business cycle of macroeconomic aggregates. In addition, unlike most other models, our's accounts for sectoral comovement in both output and factor inputs.
Association of migraine‐like headaches with Schimke immuno‐osseous dysplasia

Schimke immuno‐osseous dysplasia (SIOD) is characterized by spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia, nephropathy, and T‐cell deficiency. SIOD is caused by mutations in the putative chromatin remodeling protein SMARCAL1. We report an 8‐year‐old boy with SIOD and recurrent, severe, refractory migraine‐like headaches. Through a retrospective questionnaire‐based study, we found that refractory and severely disabling migraine‐like headaches occur in nearly half of SIOD patients. We have also found that the vasodilator minoxidil provided symptomatic relief for one patient. We hypothesize that these headaches may arise from an intrinsic vascular, neuroimmune, or neurovascular defect resulting from loss of SMARCAL1 function. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Innovative public governance through cloud computing: Information privacy, business models and performance measurement challenges

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyze challenges and to discuss proposed solutions for innovative public governance through cloud computing. Innovative technologies, such as federation of services and cloud computing, can greatly contribute to the provision of e-government services, through scaleable and flexible systems. Furthermore, they can facilitate in reducing costs and overcoming public information segmentation. Nonetheless, when public agencies use these technologies, they encounter several associated organizational and technical changes, as well as significant challenges. Design/methodology/approach – We followed a multidisciplinary perspective (social, behavioral, business and technical) and conducted a conceptual analysis for analyzing the associated challenges. We conducted focus group interviews in two countries for evaluating the performance models that resulted from the conceptual analysis. Findings – This study identifies and analyzes several challenges that may em.
Do best and worst innovation performance companies differ in terms of intellectual capital, knowledge and radicalness?

This paper has differentiated “best” from “worst” innovative companies, taking into account three separate bodies of literature, that is, the intellectual capital, knowledge-based view and innovation literatures. Based on a sample of 181 firms that belong to the manufacturing and services industries, our findings showed that the best innovation performance companies (considering both financial and non-financial dimensions of innovation success), which also presented higher firm performance, had systematically higher scores for all dimensions of intellectual capital (human, organizational and social capital), for knowledge exchange and combination than the worst innovation performance companies. However, with regard to knowledge types, our results were not as conclusive. There were no differences between best and worst innovation performance companies in terms of their systemic knowledge. Codified and simple knowledge were related to best innovation performance companies only in their financial dimension. Finally, regarding radicalness, firms with more innovation success were those which provided new products or services that incorporated new technology and new customer benefits (uniqueness), while firms with less innovation success launched new products or services that were unfamiliar or difficult to understand by customers. These findings contribute to the innovation literature providing a pretty full picture of best and worst innovative companies. Key words: Intellectual capital, human capital, social capital, organizational capital, knowledge, radicalness, innovation performance.
Roentgenographical detection of cocaine smuggling in the alimentary tract

We report five cases of cocaine smuggling, by hiding multiple drug-filled foreign bodies in the colon, either after oral ingestion or by placing them in the colon per rectum. Several smuggling methods in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and their radiological findings on abdominal plain film are presented. Computed tomography (CT) is found to be a more accurate method in the detection of the drug-filled bags, because of its improved contrast resolution and the absence of projections of overlapping structures on the transversal sections. Subsequently, CT is highly recommended in cases of negative or doubtful findings on conventional abdominal radiographs. In all cases conservative management was used and the drug-filled capsules and condoms passed spontaneously. No complications, such as intestinal obstruction by the bags of cocaine or intoxication by rupture of their wall were observed.
Contextualising City-regional Issues, Strategies and their Use: the Flemish Story

Abstract This paper presents a contextualised analysis of what might be called the city-regional debate. The debate is unfolded in terms of four types of city-regional issues, eight common strategies to tackle the latter and the use thereof in Flanders. It is concluded that the way in which city-regional issues are dealt with in Flanders can be explained by its regime, consisting of an administrative, political and cultural dimension, in terms of a centralistic policy style combined with a weak institutional position of local governments, by a ‘localisation’ of regional politics and policies, both dominated by an anti-urban bias.
Polarization reconfigurable omnidirectional antenna using crossed dipoles

A novel polarization reconfigurable omnidirectional antenna is proposed. The polarization reconfigurable antenna consists of four crossed dipole elements; each element has a left-leaning dipole and a right-leaning dipole. By switching between the left-leaning and right-leaning dipoles, a left-handed circularly polarized (LHCP) or a right-handed circularly polarized (RHCP) omnidirectional radiation pattern can be obtained. It is shown that the polarization reconfigurable omnidirectional antenna achieves a bandwidth of ~18% for return loss >10 dB and ~22% for axial ratio <; 3 dB.