Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CHALLENGES IN THE PERCEPTION AND PRODUCTION OF ENGLISH FRONT VOWELS BY NATIVE SPEAKERS OF EUROPEAN PORTUGUESE

Este artigo apresenta os resultados de um estudo que investigou a perceção e a produção das vogais anteriores do inglês (/i/, / /, / /, /æ/) por um grupo de 18 falantes nativos de português europeu. A perceção das vogais-alvo foi testada com uma tarefa de identi! cação e os dados de produção de fala foram analisados acusticamente. Os resultados mostram que os ouvintes portugueses tendem a discriminar as duas vogais-alvo do par /i/-/ / com acuidade, mas produzem-nas com alguma sobreposição. Relativamente às vogais baixas, /æ/ foi produzida mais alta e mais posterior do que / /, com considerável sobreposição, e os resultados do teste de perceção relativos a este par indicam que /æ/ foi maioritariamente identi! cada como / /. Considerando que o / / inglês é mais baixo do que o / / português (Escudero et al., 2009), ambas as vogais inglesas / / e /æ/ foram percebidas como baixas o su! ciente para serem identi! cadas como /æ/. Os resultados também sugerem que a perceção precede a produção das vogais altas, uma vez que as taxas de correção elevadas relativas à identi! cação de /i/ e / / não corresponderam a uma produção com distância euclidiana su! ciente entre essas categorias no espaço acústico. Relativamente às vogais baixas, os participantes tenderam a perceber ambas as vogais como baixas o su! ciente para serem consideradas /æ/, mas produziram-nas altas o su! ciente para serem consideradas / /.
Detection of circulating tumor cells as a prognostic factor in patients undergoing radical surgery for non‐small‐cell lung carcinoma: comparison of the efficacy of the CellSearch Assay™ and the isolation by size of epithelial tumor cell method

Comparison of the efficacy of different enrichment methods for detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) before radical surgery is lacking in non‐small‐cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) patients. Detection and enumeration of CTCs in 210 consecutive patients undergoing radical surgery for NSCLC were evaluated with the CellSearch Assay™ (CS), using the CellSearch Epithelial Cell Kit, and by the isolation by size of epithelial tumor (ISET) method, using double immunolabeling with anti‐cytokeratin and anti‐vimentin antibodies. CTCs were detected in 144 of 210 (69%) patients using CS and/or ISET and in 104 of 210 (50%) and 82 of 210 (39%) patients using ISET and CS, respectively. Using ISET, 23 of 210 (11%) patients had vimentin‐positive cells with cytological criteria of malignancy. Disease‐free survival (DFS) was worse for patients with CTCs compared to patients without CTCs detected by CS alone (p < 0.0001; log rank = 30.59) or by ISET alone (p < 0.0001; log rank = 33.07). The presence of CTCs detected by both CS and ISET correlated even better with shorter DFS at a univariate (p < 0.0001; log rank = 42.15) and multivariate level (HR, 1.235; 95% CI, 1.056–1.482; p < 0.001). CS and ISET are complementary methods for detection of CTCs in preoperative radical surgery for NSCLC. CTC detection in resectable NSCLC patients using CS and/or ISET could be a prognostic biomarker of great interest and may open up new avenues into improved therapeutic strategies for lung carcinoma patients.
Imperfect Capital Mobility and Local Government Behaviour in a Two-Period Economy

One clear result in the tax competition literature is that, when head taxes on immobile residents are available, the optimal capital tax rate for local government is zero. However, zero tax rate, when resident taxes are available, is incompatible with the phenomenon actually observed. In most countries, local governments use capital taxes as policy variables for choosing a nonzero tax rate. This paper presents a model of a two-period economy with imperfect mobile capital to explain the behaviour of local government providing capital subsidies on capital. It further examines an equilibrium tax rate where local government's objectives include Niskanen-type revenue-maximizing. Copyright 2000 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the Board of Trustees of the Bulletin of Economic Research
Social Support in Relation to Fatigue Symptoms Among Patients with Multiple Sclerosis

Background and Aim: The psychological changes and physiological limitations during multiple sclerosis (MS) disease diminish the social relations. Consequently, losing social supports leads to more physical and psychological complications such as fatigue syndromes. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the relationship of social support and fatigue syndromes in MS patients. Methods: This study was a descriptive-analytic which randomly selected 46 patients with MS. The patients evaluated through demographic information, standard modified social support scale, fatigue severity scale, modified fatigue impact scale, and fatigue descriptive scale. Gathered data analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical Pearson's correlation coefficient. Results: Mean score for variables were as following: Fatigue severity 4/3 ± 1/6, perceived fatigue 34/6 ± 19/5, quality of fatigue 62 ± 3/9, and social support 65/6 ± 23/1, respectively. According to the Pearson statistical test, there was signification association between social support with fatigue severity (P = 0.002 and r = −0.474), fatigue perception (P = 0.001 and = −0.478), and fatigue perception sub-scales, i.e. physical (P = 0.005, r = −0.432), cognitive (P = 0.003, r = −0.0457), and psychosocial (P = 0.009, r = −0.341), respectively. However, there was not significant relationship between social support and fatigue quality (P = 0.59). Conclusion: According to the results of current study, all aspects of social support can impact fatigue symptoms in MS patients. Therefore, it is suggested to develop educational programs for caregivers of patients to improve the mental and physical quality of life of patients.
Alcohol Problems among a Community Sample: Longitudinal Influences of Stress, Coping, and Gender

This study examined the relationships among stress, coping methods, and alcohol-use associated problems within a longitudinal, community sample of males and females who were followed from adolescence through young adulthood. While fewer females than males were categorized as “dependent users” these females were more debilitated in terms of the number of alcohol-related problems experienced from age 15 through age 25. Measures of both chronic and proximal levels of personal stress and negative coping styles were most helpful in explaining problems with alcohol use. Distal measures of stress and coping, while perhaps serving as mediators or moderators of other important constructs, did not appear to have a direct effect on the outcome measure.
Criminal victimization in seventeen industrialized countries

The International Crime Victimisation Survey (ICVS) is the most far-reaching programma of fully standardised sample surveys looking at householders’ experience of crime in different countries. The first ICVS took place in 1989, the second in 1992, the third in 1996 and the fourth in 2000. Surveys have been carried out in 24 industrialised countries since 1989, and in 46 cities in developing countries and countries in transition. This report deals with seventeen industrialised countries which took part in the 2000 ICVS. The results in this report relate mainly to respondents’ experience of crime in 1999, the year prior to the 2000 survey. Those interviewed were asked about crimes they had experienced, whether or not reported to the police.
Selling Luxury Brands Online

ABSTRACT This research examines the issue of online selling of luxury brands. Of key interest is first, to determine what Internet presence luxury brands have and second, whether luxury brands sell their products and services online. This is the first study to undertake a content analysis of luxury brands on the Internet, and thus is largely exploratory. A survey of 190 luxury brand websites provides the data to create a profile and comparative analysis of luxury brands. The key research objective is, using common terminology and measures, to understand how luxury brands use the Internet and to determine differences in website characteristics related to online selling. Conclusions and implications are discussed.
Do Stock Markets Catch the Flu?

Abstract We examine the impact of influenza on stock markets. For the United States, a higher incidence of flu is associated with decreased trading, decreased volatility, decreased returns, and higher bid-ask spreads. Consistent with the flu affecting institutional investors and market makers, the decrease in trading activity and volatility is primarily driven by the incidence of influenza in the greater New York City area. However, the effect of the flu on bid-ask spreads and returns is related to the incidence of flu nationally. International data confirm our findings of a decrease in trading activity and returns when flu incidence is high.
Money Growth Volatility and Income Velocity in the United Kingdom

Applying Granger-type causality along with Akaike's final-prediction-error criterion on the United Kingdom data over quarterly period, 1973–1989, this paper finds no significant causal relationship between income velocity and money growth volatility, implying that the data is incompatible with Friedman's hypothesis. [E 5]
A Note on the Demand for Fertilizer in West Pakistan

West Pakistan has experienced a remarkable revolution in agriculture during its Third Five Year Plan. Very large increases in agricultural output have resulted from the rapidly growing use of improved seeds, fertilizer, and from improved water supplies. Agricultural pricing-policy has also played a part in this achievement. In this paper only one aspect of this revolution will be examined in isolation-the rapidly growing demand for chemical fertilizers. It is to be hoped that similar studies on other agricultural inputs will follow and that as a result it will be possible to consider the interactions and aggregate significance of various inputs.
Do Credit Shocks Matter? A Global Perspective

This paper examines the importance of credit market shocks in driving global business cycles over the period 1988:1-2009:4. We first estimate common components in various macroeconomic and financial variables of the G-7 countries. We then evaluate the role played by credit market shocks using a series of VAR models. Our findings suggest that these shocks have been influential in driving global activity during the latest global recession. Credit shocks originating in the United States also have a significant impact on the evolution of world growth during global recessions.
Health care reform and American politics

Preface Acknowledgements Introduction. A Turning Point for U.S. Health Care and Politics Timeline of Health Reform Events Chapter 1. Why Now? Broken Health Care and an Election for Change Chapter 2. The Year of Pitched Battles: Who Fought for What, Why, and How Chapter 3. How the Scott Brown Upset Strengthened Health Reform Chapter 4. What Did They Deliver? The Promise of Affordable Care Chapter 5. Will Health Care Reform Survive and Succeed? Glossary of Key People, Groups, Legislation, and Health Care Terms Endnotes
Prospectus forecast publication and forecast errors: the role of venture capitalist certification

Using a dataset of French IPOs over the period 1996–2000 we provide a test of the certification ability of venture capitalists (VCs). We do this in two ways. First we compare forecast publication between VC- and non-VC-backed IPOs. Secondly, conditional on publication, we investigate the accuracy of VC-backed versus non-VC-backed IPOs' prospectus forecasts. We also test for the association between VC reputation and both forecast issuance and forecast accuracy. VC concerns for reputation should result in lower chances of issuing a forecast and in more accurate forecasts for VC-backed IPOs. Our main findings are that (i) the prospectuses of IPOs backed by VCs are indeed less likely to include financial forecasts; (ii) high-reputation VC backers are associated with lower forecast errors. These findings are consistent with the Certification Hypothesis and are robust to controlling for both sample selection bias, due to the discretionary nature of prospectus forecast issuance, and for earnings management practices.
The discriminative power of the Interval Shuttle Run Test and the Maximal Multistage Shuttle Run Test for playing level of soccer.

AIM The purpose of this study was to examine the discriminative power of the recently developed Interval Shuttle Run Test (ISRT) and the widely used Maximal Multistage 20 m Shuttle Run Test (MMSRT) for soccer players at different levels of competition. The main difference between the tests is that the exercise mode of the ISRT is not continuous but intermittent. Instead of 60 s of running per stage in the MMSRT, 30 s of running are alternated with 15 s of walking, twice per stage. METHODS Comparative study: within a 2-week period, 81 male soccer players at the Dutch premier league professional, premier league and 3rd division amateur levels performed the ISRT and the MMSRT. The total number of runs was scored for both tests. RESULTS Only the ISRT distinguished between levels of competition. In general, the ISRT correlated moderately with the MMSRT for players of different levels of competition (rP: 0.52-0.83). CONCLUSIONS In contrast to the MMSRT, the ISRT shows discriminative power for soccer players at different levels of competition supporting the validity of the ISRT for measuring endurance in a more soccer-specific way. As a result of the intermittent character of the ISRT the energetics of the ISRT and the MMSRT are not closely related.
Task-based evaluation of a 4D MAP-RBI-EM image reconstruction method for gated myocardial perfusion SPECT using a human observer study

We evaluated the performance of a new 4D image reconstruction method for improved 4D gated myocardial perfusion (MP) SPECT using a task-based human observer study. We used a realistic 4D NURBS-based Cardiac-Torso (NCAT) phantom that models cardiac beating motion. Half of the population was normal; the other half had a regional hypokinetic wall motion abnormality. Noise-free and noisy projection data with 16 gates/cardiac cycle were generated using an analytical projector that included the effects of attenuation, collimator-detector response, and scatter (ADS), and were reconstructed using the 3D FBP without and 3D OS-EM with ADS corrections followed by different cut-off frequencies of a 4D linear post-filter. A 4D iterative maximum a posteriori rescaled-block (MAP-RBI)-EM image reconstruction method with ADS corrections was also used to reconstruct the projection data using various values of the weighting factor for its prior. The trade-offs between bias and noise were represented by the normalized mean squared error (NMSE) and averaged normalized standard deviation (NSDav), respectively. They were used to select reasonable ranges of the reconstructed images for use in a human observer study. The observers were trained with the simulated cine images and were instructed to rate their confidence on the absence or presence of a motion defect on a continuous scale. We then applied receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis and used the area under the ROC curve (AUC) index. The results showed that significant differences in detection performance among the different NMSE-NSDav combinations were found and the optimal trade-off from optimized reconstruction parameters corresponded to a maximum AUC value. The 4D MAP-RBI-EM with ADS correction, which had the best trade-off among the tested reconstruction methods, also had the highest AUC value, resulting in significantly better human observer detection performance when detecting regional myocardial wall motion abnormality. We concluded that the NMSE-NSDav trade-off was shown to agree with observer performance for the detection task of the regional motion abnormality, and the optimized 4D MAP-RBI-EM method with ADS corrections provides significant improvement compared to 3D FBP and 3D OS-EM with ADS corrections in detecting regional myocardial wall motion abnormali in 4D gated MP SPECT.
Profiling: A Strategy for Successful Volunteer Recruitment in Credit Unions

Credit unions are non-profit financial organisations that provide financial services to their members. They are located in 97 countries across the world. All credit unions are governed by a volunteer board and many are reliant on volunteers for all their labour requirements. However, recruiting volunteers is a problem. The literature on recruitment issues in volunteering in general, suggests that the not-for-profit sector looks to the private sector for guidance on recruitment policies and approaches. One such approach which is considered in this paper is ‘market segmentation’ wherein the potential volunteer body is profiled to determine if an individual is likely to volunteer and if they are, to identify the type of role they are most likely to be attracted to. Prior literature on volunteering in non-profit organisations suggests that certain types of individual (dominant individuals) are more likely to volunteer. This paper investigates whether this dominant status profile is evident amongst volunteers in credit unions in Northern Ireland (NI). The study finds that people with dominant characteristics are more likely to be attracted to volunteering to the board of directors and individuals who have less dominant traits overall should be offered more social/participative type roles. This information can be used by credit union governing boards for volunteer recruitment, retention and management purposes.
Dynamics of peri-urban agricultural development and farmers' adaptive behaviour in the emerging megacity of Hyderabad, India

This paper describes the adaptation of agricultural management practices due to structural changes in the urban periphery of Hyderabad, India. We investigate structural-change drivers along with the most common types of adaptation realised by peri-urban farmers and the corresponding environmental impacts. From 120 farmer interviews, in which qualitative and quantitative data were collected, we found that increasing costs for agricultural inputs such as labour and land have motivated farmers to intensify water, machine and chemical use, thereby creating problematic environmental impacts. In addition, farmers also resort to part-time farming and organise efforts to share family labour. Based on these findings, we discuss agricultural policies and strategies within the framework of environmental planning and management for the Greater Hyderabad Area (GHA), drawing policy-design conclusions that may enable better integration of farming into the on-going process of megacity development.
The Net Effects of Large Plant Locations and Expansions on County Employment

This paper argues that the net economic impact of new firm locations or expansions is determined by a multitude of opposing forces. Using a unique database, I set out to evaluate the net effects of these opposing forces by looking at the net change in local employment and population arising from large (greater than 300 new jobs) firm locations or expansions in the State of Georgia. The analysis suggests that the employment multipliers associated with new firm locations are much less than one; that is, the net employment effect of a large firm opening is smaller than the gross employment impact. This result is consistent with other empirical economic impact studies, which find multipliers much smaller than those of typical input-output models, often less than unity, and a previous study showing little net effect of large plant openings. Expansions of existing establishments are shown to have substantial multiplicative effects, however, with an average employment multiplier of 2.0. I discuss possible reasons for differential impacts across new and expanding firms, focusing on the nature of the firms. Differences in net impact across industries and high-tech versus low-tech firms also is evaluated. I find that the impact of large firm locations or expansions on population in the resident county generally is negative, but positive for the broader region encompassing the county of location and its contiguous neighbors.
Membrane Mediated Antimicrobial and Antitumor Activity of Cathelicidin 6: Structural Insights from Molecular Dynamics Simulation on Multi-Microsecond Scale

The cathelicidin derived bovine antimicrobial peptide BMAP27 exhibits an effective microbicidal activity and moderate cytotoxicity towards erythrocytes. Irrespective of its therapeutic and multidimensional potentiality, the structural studies are still elusive. Moreover, the mechanism of BMAP27 mediated pore formation in heterogeneous lipid membrane systems is poorly explored. Here, we studied the effect of BMAP27 in model cell-membrane systems such as zwitterionic, anionic, thymocytes-like (TLM) and leukemia-like membranes (LLM) by performing molecular dynamics (MD) simulation longer than 100 μs. All-atom MD studies revealed a stable helical conformation in the presence of anionic lipids, however, significant loss of helicity was identified in TLM and zwitterionic systems. A peptide tilt (~45˚) and central kink (at residue F10) was found in anionic and LLM models, respectively, with an average membrane penetration of < 0.5 nm. Coarse-grained (CG) MD analysis on a multi-μs scale shed light on the membrane-dependent peptide and lipid organization. Stable micelle and end-to-end like oligomers were formed in zwitterionic and TLM models, respectively. In contrast, unstable oligomer formation and monomeric BMAP27 penetration were observed in anionic and LLM systems with selective anionic lipid aggregation (in LLM). Peptide penetration up to ~1.5 nm was observed in CG-MD systems with the BMAP27 C-terminal oriented towards the bilayer core. Structural inspection suggested membrane penetration by micelle/end-to-end like peptide oligomers (carpet-model like) in the zwitterionic/TLM systems, and transmembrane-mode (toroidal-pore like) in the anionic/LLM systems, respectively. Structural insights and energetic interpretation in BMAP27 mutant highlighted the role of F10 and hydrophobic residues in mediating a membrane-specific peptide interaction. Free energy profiling showed a favorable (-4.58 kcal mol-1 for LLM) and unfavorable (+0.17 kcal mol-1 for TLM) peptide insertion in anionic and neutral systems, respectively. This determination can be exploited to regulate cell-specific BMAP27 cytotoxicity for the development of potential drugs and antibiotics.
The Relationship between Behavioral and Attitudinal Trust: A Cross-cultural Study

Abstract We study the relationship between trust in an experiment and trust measured by means of popular survey items in different countries. Students from Chile, Colombia, India, Mexico and Sweden participate in a public goods game experiment and answer a set of standard attitudinal survey questions about trust. We find that behavioral trust and attitudinal trust significantly differ among countries. Behavioral trust is highest in Sweden, followed by Latin America, and lowest in India. Attitudinal trust is highest in Chile and Sweden, followed by India and Mexico, and lowest in Colombia. Further, the predictive power of survey items also differs among countries. Trust measured by survey items is significantly related to behavioral trust in some but not in all societies. No single survey item predicts actual trust across all countries. Plausible explanations of the inconsistent relationship between behavioral and attitudinal trust across countries are discussed.