Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Serum Cholesterol in Treatment-Resistant Depression

Objective: Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) may have significant differences in cholesterol levels compared with healthy controls. A previous study by our group reported that depressed patients with elevated cholesterol levels (≧200 mg/dl) were significantly more likely to be nonresponders to fluoxetine treatment than depressed patients with nonelevated cholesterol levels. However, very little is known regarding cholesterol in patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). The purpose of this study was to compare cholesterol levels at baseline between depressed patients with and without TRD and to test whether cholesterol levels at baseline can predict clinical response in patients with TRD treated with open-label nortriptyline (NT). Methods: Ninety-two patients with TRD entered a 6-week open trial of NT. Baseline cholesterol levels were randomly collected for 59 of these patients. Controlling for age and gender, we compared baseline cholesterol and triglyceride levels for 35 patients with TRD who did not respond to NT with 205 non-TRD patients who responded to an 8-week open trial of fluoxetine. Furthermore, with the use of logistic regression, we tested whether baseline cholesterol levels predicted clinical response to NT in the patients with TRD. Results: Patients with TRD had higher triglyceride levels at baseline compared with depressed patients without TRD. Cholesterol defined as a dichotomous variable being elevated if equal to or greater than 200 mg/dl, predicted poor response to a 6-week open trial of NT in patients with TRD. Conclusions: The results of this study confirm the relationship between hypercholesterolemia and poor outcome in the treatment of MDD for patients with TRD.
Relearning Sound Localization with a New Ear

Human sound localization results primarily from the processing of binaural differences in sound level and arrival time for locations in the horizontal plane (azimuth) and of spectral shape cues generated by the head and pinnae for positions in the vertical plane (elevation). The latter mechanism incorporates two processing stages: a spectral-to-spatial mapping stage and a binaural weighting stage that determines the contribution of each ear to perceived elevation as function of sound azimuth. We demonstrated recently that binaural pinna molds virtually abolish the ability to localize sound-source elevation, but, after several weeks, subjects regained normal localization performance. It is not clear which processing stage underlies this remarkable plasticity, because the auditory system could have learned the new spectral cues separately for each ear (spatial-mapping adaptation) or for one ear only, while extending its contribution into the contralateral hemifield (binaural-weighting adaptation). To dissociate these possibilities, we applied a long-term monaural spectral perturbation in 13 subjects. Our results show that, in eight experiments, listeners learned to localize accurately with new spectral cues that differed substantially from those provided by their own ears. Interestingly, five subjects, whose spectral cues were not sufficiently perturbed, never yielded stable localization performance. Our findings indicate that the analysis of spectral cues may involve a correlation process between the sensory input and a stored spectral representation of the subject's ears and that learning acts predominantly at a spectral-to-spatial mapping level rather than at the level of binaural weighting.
How to Develop Disability Awareness Using the Sport Education Model

JOPERD • Volume 78 No. 9 • November/December 2007 M rs. Rodriquez has been a physical education teacher at Betsy Ross Middle School for 17 years. She is always looking for ways to update her curriculum for the benefi t of her students, so she went to a workshop on the sport education model (SEM) sponsored by her state association. She loved the idea and could not wait to implement it in the fall. Not long after the workshop, Mrs. Rodriquez noticed that two of her students, Jessica and Fernando, were not interacting with their peers during recess. Jessica is a cheerful student with Down syndrome and Fernando is a quiet student with cerebral palsy who uses a wheelchair independently. Mrs. Rodriquez and other faculty at the school had often talked about how benefi cial a disability awareness day would be for the student body, but had never actually organized one. Mrs. Rodriquez thought back to the workshop and decided to embed disability awareness into SEM for the entire physical education curriculum in the fall term. Mrs. Rodriquez utilized the SEM during her second unit of the fall, in which she taught fl oor hockey in all her classes. During this time she also incorporated a disability awareness component to increase student knowledge and awareness of children with disabilities. In her class with Jessica and Fernando, students had made the decision to use large Frisbee disks as pucks. Another game modifi cation implemented by the students was the delayed defense rule, in which players could choose three, fi ve, or 10 seconds of delay before a defender could approach them in a game and to have one person in a wheelchair on the team opposite Fernando to equal out the playing fi eld. Everyone shared the responsibility of making fl oor hockey a fair and fun unit. Jessica loved being both the announcer and a referee. Fernando loved being on offense and being in charge of updating league standings and statistics after the day’s game play had concluded. Overall, the SEM was a huge hit in all the classes and the students succeeded in becoming more aware of ways to include their peers with disabilities. The above scenario is a success story that demonstrates how the SEM can be used properly. Everyone wins when the SEM is appropriately implemented to introduce disability awareness and to facilitate inclusion. One of the goals of Healthy People 2010 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [USDHHS], 2000) is to decrease the disparity in physical activity among individuals with disabilities. Currently it is estimated that 13 percent of students in the United States have individualized education programs, or IEPs (National Center for Education Statistics, 2006). It is the position of the Adapted Physical Activity Council (APAC) of the American Association for Physical Activity and How to Develop Disability Awareness Using the Sport Education Model
The target cash rate and its impact on investment asset returns in Australia

This article examines the relationship between asset returns and changes in the announced target cash rate of the Reserve Bank of Australia during the period from September 1990 to June 2000. Using a two stage least squares model adapted from Lowe (1995) the analysis found that there is an impact on property returns during the month of the announced change in the cash rate. This finding is not supported for other sub-indices on the Australian stock exchange, apart from Tourism and Leisure where there is also an identifiable impact.
Investment Behavior, Observable Expectations, and Internal Funds

We use earnings forecasts from securities analysts to construct a new measure of the neoclassical fundamentals that drive investment spending. We find that investment responds significantly to our new measure of fundamentals but is insensitive to cash flow, even for firms typically thought to be liquidity constrained. These results have two key implications. First, fundamentals may be more important for investment spending than would be suggested by the results to date from investment-q models. Second, the positive cash-flow effects obtained in such models may reflect a failure to control properly for fundamentals rather than the presence of financial constraints. (JEL: D92, E22)
Efficient Monte Carlo Pricing of Basket Options

Montecarlo methods can be used to price derivatives for which closed evaluation formulas are not available or difficult to derive. A drawback of the method can be its high computational cost, especially if applied to basket options, whose payoffs depend on more than one asset. This article presents two kinds of control variates to reduce variance of estimates, based on unconditional and conditional expectations of assets respectively. We apply the previous variance reduction methods to some basket options (Spread, Dual and Portfolio options), achieving in some case remarkable speed and accuracy in price estimation.
Low grade inflammation in juvenile obesity and type 1 diabetes associated with early signs of atherosclerosis.

BACKGROUND Subclinical inflammation has been implicated in the initiation and/or progression of atherosclerosis. Diabetes mellitus and obesity are risk factors for atherosclerosis, and asymptomatic low grade inflammation occurs prior to overt vascular lesions in these patients. In contrast to adults, little information exists concerning low grade inflammation in young type 1 diabetes and juvenile obesity. AIM To investigate low grade inflammation and immune activation in juvenile diabetes mellitus and obesity. METHODS hs-CRP, soluble interleukin-2 receptor (sIL-2R), C-peptide, insulin, cortisol, vitamin B12, folic acid, leptin, and homocysteine were determined in 148 patients with juvenile type 1 diabetes, 86 obese children and 142 normal weighted age-matched healthy controls. Intima-media thickness (IMT) and lumen diameter of both common carotid arteries (CCA) was measured by ultrasonography in 52 healthy pediatric controls, 10 diabetics, and 34 obese juveniles. RESULTS Serum hs-CRP was significantly elevated in patients with type 1 diabetes (p < 0.0001), and obese children (p < 0.0001) as compared to the control group. The obese juveniles (p < 0.0001) and the diabetics (p < 0.0001) showed significantly increased values for IMT of CAAs. Levels of homocysteine, sIL-2R, insulin, cortisol, vitamin B12, and folic acid did not differ from the controls. The elevation of hs-CRP was more pronounced in obesity as compared to type 1 diabetes (p < 0.0001), and the hs-CRP values correlated significantly with body mass index standard deviation score (BMI-SDS) values. Furthermore, the IMT and the luminal diameter of CCAs showed significant correlations with BMI-SDS values. CONCLUSION A low grade inflammation as determined by serum hs-CRP is significantly increased in children with type 1 diabetes, and even more pronounced in apparently healthy juveniles with obesity. The increased IMT of CCAs strongly argues for an association between this low grade inflammation and early atherosclerotic vessel injury.
What Do Thirteen Million Price Records Have to Say About Consumer Price Rigidity?

Based on the analysis of 13 million price records underlying the computation of the French consumer price index, we provide a detailed assessment of consumer price rigidity. Our main results are as follows. The average duration of prices is around 8 months. Price durations and the patterns of price-setting strongly differ across sectors. Price cuts are almost as frequent as increases, suggesting no specific downward nominal rigidity. Price changes typically have large absolute sizes. Time variation in the frequency of price changes and in their size both contribute to inflation fluctuations. Overall there is evidence of both time- and state-dependent price-setting.
Pensions and Fertility Incentives

This paper discusses the efficiency of a pay-as-you-go pension reform by introducing a child benefit in an endogenous fertility setting. In the model of a small open economy, higher fertility is associated with a reduction of lifetime labor supply. The optimum share of fertility-related pensions is always below unity, but generally positive. The former is true since individuals do not take into account the impact of their labor supply choice on the parent generation. It is demonstrated that child allowances are equivalent to fertility-related pensions as instruments to achieve an efficient allocation.
Clustering in the Creative Industries: Insights from the Origins of Computer Software

We use several different sources (a 1970 Roster of Organizations in Data Processing and the 1960 and 1970 Censuses of Population) to study patterns of geographic clustering at the very origins of the software industry. We find a strong trend toward clustering of the industry in a few metropolitan areas. Furthermore, we uncover a tendency in the early software industry to agglomerate in close proximity to some of its main customers. This tendency holds even after controlling for region-specific heterogeneity and for the potentially endogenous nature of the software customers' location decisions. We explore the factors that may have driven the observed clustering patterns and suggest directions for further research.
REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN MORTGAGE FINANCING COSTS

THE EXISTENCE of regional differences in mortgage financing costs in the United States has long been recognized and lamented. Fragmentary data indicate that the situation improved substantially in the first part of the twentieth century, with the limits of the spread narrowing from about 4.0 percentage points as reported in the Census of 1890 to less than 1.0 percentage point by the end of the 1930's.1 In the period since World War II, however, regional differentials have remained about the same.2 The existence of regional differences in mortgage yields has been attributed to a number of factors. In the main, these causal explanations are of two types. One cites the existence of true differences in the investment value of the mortgages, due to variations in risk, terms, liquidity, and the like. The other stresses market imperfections, such as ignorance and legal barriers, which prevent the establishment of like prices for like commodities. Insofar as market imperfections are the cause, the further conclusion is justified that regional differentials represent an undesirable and inefficient situation which is conducive to resource misallocation. Unfortunately, until recently systematic data on regional mortgage yields have not been available on a scale that would permit any empirical investigation of the causes of regional differences. In 1963, however, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board began the compilation and publication of a monthly series of the average interest rates and loan fees charged by the four major institutional lenders on conventional, single-family loans in 18 Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Our objective here is to explore these data with reference to some of the characteristics that have been thought to play a role in determining differences in regional mortgage yields. A few initial precautions should be noted. Data are not available for testing all possible relationships, although the relationships that we do test appear to account for a large share of the total regional yield variation. Furthermore, it should be noted that we are observing the situation only in one time period, and only as it pertains to the areas studied. Post-war data on both FHA-VA and conventional mortgage yields indicate that regional mortgage yield differ-
The financial structure of nonlisted firms

This article presents an analysis of how Norwegian nonlisted firms are financed. Using a unique database covering all limited liability firms in Norway, both the size (leverage) and composition (maturity structure) of debt are investigated. The empirical evidence provides support for the effects of taxes, asymmetric information and size suggested in the theoretical literature and rejects the effects of agency costs and the pecking order theory. It also shows that the capital structure choice in these firms is not made in a fundamentally different way than in large firms.
The Effect of Manager Exclusion on Nurse Turnover Intention and Care Quality

Little is known about how exclusionary practices (i.e., ignored, ostracized) by managers differ across demographics and influence nursing outcomes. This study examines whether managerial exclusion varies by generation, race, and gender, and the extent to which these variables, in turn, relate to turnover intention and perceived patient care among a sample of 747 nurses working in hospitals in a midwestern health system. Exclusion did not differ across most demographic groups, though men reported less exclusion than women. Younger nurses of the Millennial generation, those feeling excluded, and those with fewer years of experience reported lower quality patient care. Managerial exclusion, being a nurse of color, and less experience were associated with stronger intentions to leave. Nursing leaders should attend to factors that may contribute to racial minorities seeking other jobs, diminish younger nurses’ ability to provide high-quality care, and minimize practices that might lead nurses to feel excluded.
On the detection of extreme movements and persistent behaviour in Mediterranean stock markets: a wavelet-based approach

We combine the global Hurst exponent and Morlet wavelet multi-resolution analysis (MRA) to investigate the dynamic behaviour of six selected stock markets in the Mediterranean region. Specifically, we employ the resonance coefficients and their power spectra to identify potential extreme movements and long-term dependence in stock returns. Using weekly data for the period 2005 to 2010, our results reveal that the wavelet MRA is able to reconstruct the effects of major extreme shocks on stock returns of studied markets, such as the Asian financial crisis, the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2007–2009 financial crisis. Moreover, the wavelet-based global Hurst exponent indicates the presence of long-term dependencies in stock returns of all the considered markets, except for France where the anti-persistent behaviour is detected. Overall, our findings are useful to assess the stock market efficiency and provide new insights into stock market dynamics over different time scales.
Business Fixed Investment and the Recent Business Cycle in Japan

To analyze business fixed investment in Japan, which has been unusually volatile in recent years, we develop and apply a log-linear flexible accelerator model. We find that movements in business fixed investment are consistent with movements in output and the tax-adjusted cost of capital, both on average during our entire 1961-1994 sample and during the recent 1986-1994 business cycle.
Liquidity and financial contagion

There is an apparent puzzle at the heart of the 2007 credit crisis. The subprime mortgage sector is small relative to the financial system as a whole and the exposure was widely dispersed through securitization. Yet the crisis in the credit market has been potent. Traditionally, financial contagion has been viewed through the lens of defaults, where if A has borrowed from B and B has borrowed from C, then the default of A impacts B, which then impacts C, etc. However, in a modern market-based financial system, the channel of contagion is through price changes and the measured risks and marked-to-market capital of financial institutions. When balance sheets are marked to market, asset price changes show up immediately on balance sheets and elicit response from financial market participants. Even if exposures are dispersed widely throughout the financial system, the potential impact of a shock can be amplified many-fold through market price changes.
Cellular and molecular mechanisms controlling the migration of neocortical interneurons

The discovery, approximately 15 years ago, that cortical GABAergic interneurons originate outside the pallium has revolutionized our understanding of the development of the cerebral cortex. It is now clear that glutamatergic pyramidal cells and GABAergic interneurons follow largely distinct development programs, a notion that has challenged our views on how these neurons assemble to form precise neural circuits. In this review, I summarize our current knowledge of the mechanisms that control the migration of neocortical interneurons, a process that can be subdivided into three consecutive phases: migration to the cortex, intracortical dispersion, and layering.
The Sustainable Workforce

Employment practices that support work–life balance and wellbeing in workplace experiences are critical pathways to long-term workforce effectiveness, or cultivating a “sustainable workforce. ” In this chapter, we discuss the notion of a sustainable workforce and examine how it relates to work–life balance and wellbeing. We then identify three organizational strategies that can be employed by researchers and practitioners to improve these linkages: promoting sustainable careers, increasing workplace social support, and safeguarding against work intensification. Finally, we present a research agenda which centers on developing sustainable workforces in organizations and fostering long-term social benefits.
Syndemic conditions associated with increased HIV risk in a global sample of men who have sex with men

Objective We evaluated the relationship among syndemic conditions (defined as a cluster of interconnected psychosocial health conditions), sexual behaviours and self-reported HIV infection in a global sample of men who have sex with men (MSM). Methods We used generalised estimating equations logistic regression models with robust SEs to assess the relationships among cumulative number of syndemic conditions—including depression, substance use, violence, sexual stigma and homelessness—and unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) and HIV infection, while accounting for clustering within-country in a global cross-sectional survey of 3934 MSM across 151 countries. Results We observed parallel, significant dose–response associations between the number of syndemic conditions and UAI, as well as number of syndemic conditions and HIV infection. Compared with participants without syndemics, the adjusted OR (aOR) for UAI among those with 1, 2 and 3 or more syndemic conditions were 1.44 (Bonferroni-adjusted 95% CI 1.23 to 1.68), 1.89 (1.51 to 2.36) and 2.03 (1.43 to 2.89), respectively. Compared with participants without syndemics, the aOR for HIV infection among those with 1, 2 and 3 or more syndemic conditions were 1.67 (1.24 to 2.26), 2.02 (1.44 to 2.85) and 2.35 (1.31 to 4.21), respectively. Conclusions This analysis provides evidence of intertwining syndemics that may operate synergistically to increase HIV risk among MSM globally. To curb HIV effectively and advance the health of MSM, multiple conditions must be addressed concurrently using multi-level approaches that target both individual and structural risk factors.
The diffusion of database machines

This article reports the results of an investigation of organizational assimilation of an emerging information technology—database machines. Results of database machine adoption and implementation are reported, with emphasis on practical implications for managing information technology diffusion. The importance of top management support and champions who push for adoption and implementation are indicated. Other factors discussed include technological awareness, vendor involvement,and training, among others. Built on innovation diffusion and IS implementation studies, a model of organizational-level adoption and implementation underpins the interpretation of the results.
Employee Commitment and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors in the Hotel Industry: Do Foci Matter?

In this article the authors examine the relationship between employee commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors. Their main objective is to examine the relationship between commitment to the organization, the supervisor, and colleagues, and citizenship behavior directed toward the organization (civic virtue and sportsmanship) and individuals (helping). The authors present the results of a study conducted in 10 hotels located in Quebec, providing 180 usable responses. The findings show that while commitment to the organization is related to helping, civic virtue, and sportsmanship, commitment to the supervisor is only related to sportsmanship. Commitment to colleagues is only linked to helping. The findings are discussed in the light of the literature.