Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hypoadiponectinemia in Patients With Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation

Background and Objectives Adiponectin is an adipose tissue-derived hormone that has beneficial effects on cardiac function and has been reported to be associated with lipid metabolism, glucose metabolism, and insulin resistance. Serum levels of adiponectin are reduced in obese individuals compared with non-obese individuals. Obesity is associated with an increased incidence of atrial fibrillation (AF); however, the role of adiponectin in AF is unclear. The aim of this study is to evaluate the relationship between the plasma adiponectin level and AF. Subjects and Methods Sixty-one consecutive patients were prospectively enrolled for this study. Subjects were divided into two groups: patients with AF (n=30) and controls (n=31). Laboratory evaluation, including levels of plasma adiponectin, was performed and echocardiographic parameters were measured. Results The baseline characteristics were not different between the two groups. The plasma adiponectin level of patients in the AF group was significantly lower than in the control group (14.9±7.2 vs. 19.±8.9 µg/mL, p<0.05). In addition, when we divided the AF patients into paroxysmal and chronic AF, the plasma adiponectin level was significantly lower in patients with paroxysmal AF, compared with the control group. In multiple binary logistic regression analysis to evaluate the independent predictors for AF, adiponectin and left atrial diameter were strong independent predictors of AF. Conclusion In this study a lower plasma adiponectin concentration was significantly associated with that of paroxysmal AF. Hypoadiponectinemia can potentially be an important risk factor for AF.
Fundamental frequency and mission profile wearout of IGBT in DFIG converters for windpower

In this paper the influence of fundamental frequency and mission profile power cycles on estimated lifetime of the power semiconductors in the rotor side converter of a DFIG will be investigated. The aim of this paper is to get a feeling which impact the large cycles due to the variation of wind speed (mission profile cycles) and the short cycles caused by the output frequency of the converter (fundamental frequency cycles) have on the estimated life time of the power semiconductors. The total number of cycles, including mission profile and fundamental frequency cycles, were counted using the Rainflow algorithm. To count the fundamental frequency only the maximum and minimum temperature within one period of the fundamental frequency were extracted. The investigation was done for a real wind speed over time profile over 6 months.
Social process of environmental risk perception, preferences of risk management and public participation in decision making : a cross-cultural study between the United States and China

Environmental risk is the threat to human beings and what they value from natural or human-driven hazards associated with global change. Environmental risk is socially constructed, and risk analysis needs to address not only physical environmental processes but also social, economic, cultural, and political views to provide more insights for environmental management. This cross-cultural study between China and the U.S. intended to examine how people’s perceptions of environmental risk, preferences in risk management, and perspectives of participatory decision processes and quality vary within the different social, cultural and political systems. A structural equation model (SEM) with social factors (social trust, social value, and risk experience) was constructed to explore the correlations of those factors, and the relationships of social factors to risk perception and preference in risk management. A 2×2 experiment with four decision scenarios was designed to examine people’s perspectives of successful participatory decision processes and quality. Randomly selected college students from The Ohio State University (n=240) in the U.S. and Beijing Normal University (n=280) in China were participants in the research. The results indicated that the social processes of environmental risks and participation in decision making were significantly different between Americans and Chinese. In general, the Chinese were more concerned about environmental risks, and they perceived the environmental issues to be more risky to health, to the environment, and to ii Made available by Ohio Sea Grant as OHSU-TD-107 project E-TER-002.
Prognostic value of renal pathological findings in children with atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome.

INTRODUCTION Atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) is accompanied by a poor prognosis and high mortality rate. We investigated the predictive value of severity of renal involvement, as evaluated by pathologic examination, for long-term outcome of atypical HUS. MATERIALS AND METHODS Kidney biopsies of 29 children diagnosed with atypical HUS between 1992 and 2005 were reviewed. The severity of glomerular, vascular (arteriolar and arterial), interstitial, and tubular involvement were determined. Scores of renal involvement were determined by re-evaluating kidney specimens. The outcome measures were death, chronic kidney disease (CKD), hypertension, and proteinuria. RESULTS After a mean of 3.7 years of follow-up, 24.1% of the patients had normal kidney function and blood pressure, 24.1% showed proteinuria, and 41.4% had CKD, and 10.3% had unknown prognosis. Overall, 24.1% of the patients died due to emergent hypertension with or without CKD. The existence of arteriolar and arterial thrombosis attributed to severe CKD (risk ratio, 3.67; 95% confidence interval, 1.63 to 8.2). Presence of thrombosis in the vessels, and thickening of the arterial medial and intimal layers had brought about a significantly higher mortality rate. Chronic kidney disease was more frequent in the children with vascular scores higher than 0.14 and a final score of more than 0.2. CONCLUSIONS The severity of renal pathological involvement, especially the degree of vascular damage, is a good predictor of long-term outcome of patient with atypical HUS.
Primary High-Dose Murine Norovirus 1 Infection Fails To Protect from Secondary Challenge with Homologous Virus

ABSTRACT Human noroviruses in the Caliciviridae family are the major cause of nonbacterial epidemic gastroenteritis worldwide. Primary human norovirus infection does not elicit lasting protective immunity, a fact that could greatly affect the efficacy of vaccination strategies. Little is known regarding the pathogenesis of human noroviruses or the immune responses that control them because there has previously been no small-animal model or cell culture system of infection. Using the only available small-animal model of norovirus infection, we found that primary high-dose murine norovirus 1 (MNV-1) infection fails to afford protection against a rechallenge with a homologous virus. Thus, MNV-1 represents a valuable model with which to dissect the pathophysiological basis for the lack of lasting protection against human norovirus infection. Interestingly, the magnitude of protection afforded by a primary MNV-1 infection inversely correlates with the inoculum dose. Future studies will elucidate the mechanisms by which noroviruses avoid the induction of protective immunity and the role played by the inoculum dose in this process, ultimately translating this knowledge into successful vaccination approaches.
Accruals, Cash-Flows and Tobin’s q: An Investment Perspective on Firm Accruals

Following Zhang (Accounting Review, 2007) we cast firm accruals in terms of short-term investment. Since many studies consider accruals as a smoothed measure of cash flows, we first adopt Zhang specification and augment the standard Jones model with a cash-flow variable. Second, if accruals are indeed a form of short-term investment they should also be influenced by firm’s performance as measured by Tobin’s q. Consequently we propose a new version of the accrual model including a proxy for Tobin’s q. Given that accounting data and Tobin’s q are generally measured with errors, we also introduce a new estimation method based on a modified version of the Hausman artificial regression, featuring an optimal weighting matrix composed of higher moments instrumental variable estimators. Our results suggest that all the key parameters of the accrual models are indeed systematically biased with measurement errors. More importantly, our findings largely qualify Zhang’s conjecture on accruals, as both cash-flows and Tobin’s q are found strongly significant regressors of firm accruals. Relatedly we find that the Tobin’s q augmented model better isolate discretionary accruals so that the residuals of the equation are particularly well-suited to forecast stock returns.
Self efficacy measurement and goal attainment after pulmonary rehabilitation

Background Little is known about self-efficacy in COPD and its role as a mediator of goal attainment after rehabilitation. We hypothesized that higher baseline self efficacy may facilitate goal attainment. Methods 48 COPD patients completed pulmonary rehabilitation, self-efficacy was measured using the COPD Self Efficacy Scale (CSES). Personal goals were used as self reported outcome. Relationships were evaluated between CSES and St George’s Hospital Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ); depression; using Brief Assessment Schedule Cards (BASDEC), London Chest Activity of Daily Living Scale (LCADL) and exercise tolerance; using Six-Minute Walking Distance (6MWD) and muscle strength. Results 74 Stable COPD patients, mean FEV1 1.2 (0.6) l, age 68.1 (10.2) years were recruited. 51 patients completed rehabilitation and 48 of those CSES and reported goal attainment. 94 goals were documented. Baseline self efficacy did not differ according to whether goal was achieved or not. Relationships were evident between CSES and SGRQ (r = −0.53), 6MWD (r = 0.36), BASDEC (r = −0.31), LCADL (r = −0.33) (all p ≤ 0.01), but not FEV1, pack years or muscle strength. There was a significant improvement in CSES scores pre to post rehabilitation, mean difference (95% CI) 0. 27 (0.04 to 0.51). Conclusions Self efficacy, using the CSES, improves with rehabilitation but baseline self efficacy does not appear to influence goal attainment.
Institutions, Social Norms and Economic Development

Part 1 The subject put into perspective: radicalism versus gradualism - the intellectual debate of the 1950s and 1960s Marx and Boserup - institutional development as an induced mechanism the new institutional economics - a comparative static approach privileging transaction costs and risk considerations social norms and fairness considerations the evolutionary approach to institutions. Part 2 Resource endowments and agricultural development: introduction physical isolation and transportation bottlenecks physical isolation and market underdevelopment physical isolation and constraints on the supply of public goods the complicating presence of technology constraints lessons from the debate on the aggregate supply response conclusion and policy implications. Appendix: optimal choice of agricultural policy mix. Part 3 Property rights in land - part 1 dividing the commons: introduction the view of the property rights school and the evolutionary followers limitations of the (qualified) property rights approach conclusion. Part 4 Property rights in land - part 2 individualisation of land tenure: introduction the ETLR (evolutionary theory of land rights) - a presentation the ETLR put to test - the efficiency effects the ETLR put to test - the induced demand-and-supply mechanism conclusion and policy implications. (Part contents).
Celebrity Endorsements in Japan and the United States: Is Negative Information All That Harmful?

ABSTRACT This research involves a comparative study conducted in the United States and Japan to investigate whether the form of negative information about a celebrity (other- or self-oriented) results in differential evaluations of the brand endorsed by the celebrity. Surprisingly, we find that both Japanese and Americans view endorsed products more positively in the presence of self-oriented negative information, a possible suspension of the famous fundamental attribution error in human judgment. Implications for advertising practitioners are discussed.
Antibody Responses After Analytic Treatment Interruption in Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1-Infected Individuals on Early Initiated Antiretroviral Therapy

The examination of antibody responses in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1-infected individuals in the setting of antiretroviral treatment (ART) interruption can provide insight into the evolution of antibody responses during viral rebound. In this study, we assessed antibody responses in 20 subjects in AIDS Clinical Trials Group A5187, wherein subjects were treated with antiretroviral therapy during acute/early HIV-1 infection, underwent analytic treatment interruption, and subsequently demonstrated viral rebound. Our data suggest that early initiation of ART arrests the maturation of HIV-1-specific antibody responses, preventing epitope diversification of antibody binding and the development of functional neutralizing capacity. Antibody responses do not appear permanently blunted, however, because viral rebound triggered the resumption of antibody maturation in our study. We also found that antibody responses measured by these assays did not predict imminent viral rebound. These data have important implications for the HIV-1 vaccine and eradication fields.
On a Stochastic, Irreversible Investment Problem

The productive sector of the economy, represented by a single firm employing labor to produce the consumption good, is studied in a stochastic continuous time model on a finite time interval. The firm must choose the optimal level of employment and capital investment in order to maximize its expected total profits. In this stochastic control problem the firm's capacity is modeled as an Ito process controlled by a monotone process, possibly singular, that represents the cumulative real investment. It is optimal to invest when the shadow value of installed capital exceeds the capital's replacement cost; this threshold is the free boundary of a related optimal stopping problem which we recast as a stopping problem without integral cost, similar to the American option problem. Then, under a regularity condition, we characterize the free boundary as the unique solution of a nonlinear integral equation.
Parsing Noun Phrase Structure with CCG

Statistical parsing of noun phrase ( NP) structure has been hampered by a lack of goldstandard data. This is a significant problem for CCGbank, where binary branching NP derivations are often incorrect, a result of the automatic conversion from the Penn Treebank. We correct these errors in CCGbank using a gold-standard corpus of NP structure, resulting in a much more accurate corpus. We also implement novel NER features that generalise the lexical information needed to parse NPs and provide important semantic information. Finally, evaluating against DepBank demonstrates the effectiveness of our modified corpus and novel features, with an increase in parser performance of 1.51%.
Bending the Curve: Improving the ROC Curve Through Error Redistribution

Classification performance is often not uniform over the data. Some areas in the input space are easier to classify than others. Features that hold information about the "difficulty" of the data may be non-discriminative and are therefore disregarded in the classification process. We propose a meta-learning approach where performance may be improved by post-processing. This improvement is done by establishing a dynamic threshold on the base-classifier results. Since the base-classifier is treated as a "black box" the method presented can be used on any state of the art classifier in order to try an improve its performance. We focus our attention on how to better control the true-positive/false-positive trade-off known as the ROC curve. We propose an algorithm for the derivation of optimal thresholds by redistributing the error depending on features that hold information about difficulty. We demonstrate the resulting benefit on both synthetic and real-life data.
Firing Properties of Spinal Interneurons during Voluntary Movement. II. Interactions between Spinal Neurons

The relationship between the activity of pairs of simultaneously recorded spinal interneurons (INs) in the cervical enlargement was studied in five monkeys performing voluntary wrist movements. The tendency for INs to exhibit similar response properties and synchronized firing was tested as a function of physical distance between the cells and their correlational linkages with forearm muscles. Nearby INs tended to have more similar torque and direction turning (signal correlation) and more similar response profiles (e.g., tonic vs phasic firing) than INs that were far apart. This suggests that nearby cells receive common synaptic input. In contrast, the trial-to-trial covariation of rate around the mean rate for all trials (noise correlation) was independent of the distance between the neurons. Furthermore, signal and noise correlation were independent, suggesting different underlying mechanisms. Surprisingly, spike-to-spike correlation between INs was relatively infrequent and weak, as measured by cross-correlation histograms. In contrast, single motor units (SMUs) in forearm muscles fired more synchronously, particularly for SMUs in single extensor muscles. Either common drive to INs is too weak to induce synchronized firing, or there is an active decorrelation mechanism within IN networks.
Triglyceride‐ and Cholesterol‐Rich Lipoproteins Have a Differential Effect on Mild/Moderate and Severe Lesion Progression as Assessed by Quantitative Coronary Angiography in a Controlled Trial of Lovastatin

The Monitored Atherosclerosis Regression Study, a randomized, double- blind, placebo-controlled, 2-year trial of lovastatin monotherapy, found that coronary lesions < 50% diameter stenosis (%S) and coronary lesions < 50%S at baseline had different responses to therapy. We now report on clinical, lipid, and nonlipid risk factors of treatment response in these lesion subsets. Methods and ResultsTwo hundred seventy subjects, 37 to 67 years old, with plasm/ba total cholesterol (TC) 190 to 295 mg/dL (4.91 to 7.63 mmol/L) and total triglyceride < 500 mg/dL (5.65 mmol/L) were randomized to low-fat, low-cholesterol diet and either lovastatin 80 mg/d or placebo. Logistic regression was used to model the association between risk factors and coronary lesion progression in mild/moderate ( < 50%S) and severe ( < 50%S) lesions in 220 angiogram pairs analyzed by computer quantitative coronary angiography. In the placebo group, risk factors (P < .05) for the progression of mild/moderate lesions were triglycerides and TC/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C). Risk factors for the progression of severe lesions were HDL-C (negative), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C)/HDL-C, and TC/HDL-C. TC/HDL-C was the pre-dominant risk factor for both mild/moderate and severe lesions in the multivariate analysis. In the lovastatin group, with aggressive lowering of LDL-C and TC below 85 mg/dL and 156 mg/dL, respectively, risk factors for mild/moderate lesions included triglycerides and very-low-density lipoprotein-LDLassociated apolipoprotein C-Ill (apo C-III-heparin precipitate), a marker of triglyceride-rich lipoprotein particles. Apo C-III-heparin precipitate was the predominant risk factor in the multivariate analysis. Risk factors for severe lesions were LDL-C, LDL-C/HDL-C, TC/HDL-C, and apo B; LDL-C/ HDL-C was the predominant risk factor. ConclusionsThese results indicate that triglyceride-rich lipoproteins and cholesterol-rich lipoproteins have a differential effect on mild/moderate and severe lesion progression, respectively. These results add to the growing evidence of the importance of triglyceride-rich lipoproteins as a risk factor for coronary artery disease and the need for treatment in the progression of atherosclerosis.
The effect of hearing impairment on localization dominance for single-word stimuli.

Localization dominance (one of the phenomena of the "precedence effect") was measured in a large number of normal-hearing and hearing-impaired individuals and related to self-reported difficulties in everyday listening. The stimuli (single words) were made-up of a "lead" followed 4 ms later by a equal-level "lag" from a different direction. The stimuli were presented from a circular ring of loudspeakers, either in quiet or in a background of spatially diffuse babble. Listeners were required to identify the loudspeaker from which they heard the sound. Localization dominance was quantified by the weighting factor c [B.G. Shinn-Cunningham et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 93, 2923-2932 (1993)]. The results demonstrated large individual differences: Some listeners showed near-perfect localization dominance (c near 1) but many showed a much reduced effect. Two-thirds (64/93) of the listeners gave a value of c of at least 0.75. There was a significant correlation with hearing loss, such that better hearing listeners showed better localization dominance. One of the items of the self-report questionnaire ("Do you have the impression of sounds being exactly where you would expect them to be? ") showed a significant correlation with the experimental results. This suggests that reductions in localization dominance may affect everyday auditory perception.
DTV (COFDM) SFN signal variation field tests in urban environments for portable outdoor reception

The paper presents the measurement results obtained in an extensive field test campaign developed in two large cities of Spain (Madrid and Bilbao) with the aim of characterizing the portable outdoor reception of digital terrestrial television (COFDM - coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexed) and continue the studies carried out by the authors during the past years.
Gender issues in physical education

Physical education programs in schools are designed to promote lifelong habits of physical activity by providing children with both the opportunity to be physically active and positive experiences of that activity. In many nations, including Iceland, there is general concern that levels of physical activity decrease during adolescence, and that girls are even less active than boys. Interviews with four physical education teachers and four principals at the elementary school level in Akureyri, Iceland, explored current beliefs about the effectiveness and value of physical education, gender issues within the physical education system, as well as the value of coed and same sex physical education. A general consensus was found amongst educators regarding the goals and effectiveness of their physical education program. Schools in Iceland have no guidelines from the Ministry of Education curriculum as to when, or whether to use single sex or coed classroom environments; and that current school physical education program set-ups are developed based on the opinions and beliefs of the educators who have very little formal education regarding the use of single sex and coed environments. All four teachers found it easier to activate girls in a single sex teaching environment, specifically, when taking part in activities that were more physical in nature and in the upper grades. However, all teachers were in favour of a mix of coed and single sex teaching environments within their programs in order that students benefit from the social interaction. Educators had a variety of opinions regarding to what degree their programs could be considered “masculinized”. In addition, the teachers indicated that girls in general needed more motivation or individual attention on behalf of the teachers in order to achieve greater levels of participation. This paper concludes that formal education regarding gender issues in physical education should be a requirement for physical education teachers. Furthermore, that schools should investigate whether their physical education programs are truly meeting the needs of both genders.