Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predicting the need for tracheostomy in patients with cervical spinal cord injury

BACKGROUND Approximately 75% of hospitalized patients with a cervical spinal cord injury (CSCI) will require intubation and mechanical ventilation (MV) because of compromised respiratory function. It is difficult to predict those CSCI patients who will require prolonged ventilation and therefore will most benefit from early tracheostomy. This study intended to show the benefits of tracheostomy, particularly early, and to identify predictors of prolonged MV after CSCI. METHODS A retrospective review of patients aged 16 years and older with acute CSCI admitted to London Health Science Center from 1991 to 2010 was performed. Demographic data and clinical parameters were extracted from medical records and the trauma registry. Regression analysis was used to identify predictors of prolonged MV. RESULTS There were 66 eligible patients of which 42 (62%) had a tracheostomy performed. Five patients (7.6%) remained ventilator dependent and seven (10.6%) died more than 7 days after injury secondary to sepsis. After adjusting for the number of ventilator days after injury, patients who had a tracheostomy had fewer pulmonary complications than those who did not have a tracheostomy (p = 0.001). Early tracheostomy resulted in fewer days on the ventilator and a shorter hospital stay. Clinical parameters that predicted MV to be required longer than 7 days were Injury Severity Score > 32, complete SCI, and a PAO2/FIO2 ratio < 300 3 days after MV was initiated. CONCLUSION We recommend early tracheostomy if the Injury Severity Score is >32, the patient has a complete SCI, and the PAO2/FIO2 ratio is <300 3 days after MV was initiated. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Prognostic study, level III.
Toward an interdisciplinary theory of coordination

This paper characterizes a new research area, called coordination theory, that focuses on the interdisciplinary study of coordination. Research in this area uses and extends ideas about coordination from disciplines such as computer science, organization theory, operations research, economics, linguistics, and psychology. In the framework presented here, coordination is analyzed in terms of actors performing interdependent activities that achieve goals. A variety of processes are analyzed from this perspective and commonalities across disciplines are identified. Processes analyzed include goal decomposition, resource allocation, synchronization, group decisionmaking, communication, and the perception of common objects. A major section of the paper summarizes recent applications of coordination theory in three different domains: (1) understanding the effects of information technology on human organizations and markets, (2) designing cooperative work tools, and (3) designing distributed and parallel processing computer systems. In the final section of the paper, elements of a research agenda in this new area are briefly outlined.
Carbon Tax Burdens on Low-Income Households: A Reason for Delaying Climate Policy?

This paper discusses techniques for measuring the incidence of carbon taxes across different household income groups and provides some cross-country estimates of these effects for selected advanced countries. The general message of this paper is that distributional concerns should not necessarily hold up carbon pricing. Energy price impacts may be less regressive than often supposed and there are ample opportunities in advanced countries for adjusting tax and benefit schedules to alter the overall incidence of a carbon tax reform. Insofar as possible however, using carbon tax revenues in ways that enhance economic efficiency is critical for containing overall costs to the economy.
Neural Activity Relating to Generation and Representation of Galvanic Skin Conductance Responses: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Central feedback of peripheral states of arousal influences motivational behavior and decision making. The sympathetic skin conductance response (SCR) is one index of autonomic arousal. The precise functional neuroanatomy underlying generation and representation of SCR during motivational behavior is undetermined, although it is impaired by discrete brain lesions to ventromedial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate, and parietal lobe. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study brain activity associated with spontaneous fluctuations in amplitude of SCR, and activity corresponding to generation and afferent representation of discrete SCR events. Regions that covaried with increased SCR included right orbitofrontal cortex, right anterior insula, left lingual gyrus, right fusiform gyrus, and left cerebellum. At a less stringent level of significance, predicted areas in bilateral medial prefrontal cortex and right inferior parietal lobule covaried with SCR. Generation of discrete SCR events was associated with significant activity in left medial prefrontal cortex, bilateral extrastriate visual cortices, and cerebellum. Activity in right medial prefrontal cortex related to afferent representation of SCR events. Activity in bilateral medial prefrontal lobe, right orbitofrontal cortex, and bilateral extrastriate visual cortices was common to both generation and afferent representation of discrete SCR events identified in a conjunction analysis. Our results suggest that areas implicated in emotion and attention are differentially involved in generation and representation of peripheral SCR responses. We propose that this functional arrangement enables integration of adaptive bodily responses with ongoing emotional and attentional states of the organism.
Perceptual Spaces: Mathematical Structures to Neural Mechanisms

A central goal of neuroscience is to understand how populations of neurons build and manipulate representations of percepts that provide useful information about the environment. This symposium explores the fundamental properties of these representations and the perceptual spaces in which they are organized. Spanning the domains of color, visual texture, environmental sound, music, tactile quality, and odor, we show how the geometric structures of perceptual spaces can be determined experimentally and how these structures provide insights into the principles of neural coding and the neural mechanisms that generate the codes, and into the neural processing of complex sensory stimuli. The diversity of the neural architecture in these different sensory systems provides an opportunity to compare their different solutions to common problems: the need for dimensionality reduction, strategies for topographic or nontopographic mapping, the utility of the higher-order statistical structure inherent in natural sensory stimuli, and the constraints of neural hardware.
Instances and principles of distributed leadership: A multiple case study of Illinois middle school principals' leadership practices

In today? s era of high-stakes accountability in education, the challenges of leadership for learning may be too great for one leader. Today? s public school principals may benefit from the support of teachers and others to serve as additional instructional leaders. Many schools are adopting a distributed leadership approach to address this issue, and middle level schools may be well suited for the adoption of a distributed form of leadership. This multiple-case study examined how three successful principals of middle schools in Illinois utilized distributed leadership practices within those schools, examining the actions or activities of the principals that helped to facilitate distributed leadership practices, the barriers or challenges encountered when attempting to implement distributed leadership practices and what strategies or practices have been put into place to overcome them, and how the presence of interdisciplinary teaming influenced distributed leadership practices in middle level schools. Three schools were examined, utilizing data from a total of 23 interviews of teachers and principals, observations of building leadership and interdisciplinary team meetings during 9 visits, and document analysis. Findings from this research show that organizational structures have to be developed that permit the schools? faculty and staff to be engaged in multiple groups, letting tasks be distributed and permitting democratic governance of the school. Findings also demonstrated how the development and communication of a common vision for student learning was important. Teachers were regarded as experts and were engaged as leaders to advance curricular goals, professional development, and building management. Most importantly, distributed leadership appeared to be significantly strengthened by a school? s adherence to the middle school philosophy. In schools in which interdisciplinary teams formed the backbone of the organizational structure, the teams were able to operate as a mechanism for participatory decision making and teacher leadership development. It appears that the highly collaborative nature of teaming, and the middle school philosophy in general, may be a factor contributing to the success of a distributed form of leadership. As distributed forms of leadership are becoming more common in schools, this study provides some insight into the creation and support of this type of leadership in middle schools. The collaborative nature of interdisciplinary teams that is a signature practice of the middle school concept, as well as the trust and relationships necessary to engage in effective teaming, also seem to be factors in the success of developing distributed leadership.
Suppressive Effects of Irbesartan on Inflammation and Apoptosis in Atherosclerotic Plaques of apoE−/− Mice: Molecular Imaging with 14C-FDG and 99mTc-Annexin A5

Objectives To investigate the effects of irbesartan on inflammation and apoptosis in atherosclerotic plaques by histochemical examination and molecular imaging using 14C-FDG and 99mTc-annexin A5. Background Irbesartan has a peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) activation property in addition to its ability to block the AT1 receptor. Accordingly, irbesartan may exert further anti-inflammatory and anti-apoptotic effects in atherosclerotic plaques. However, such effects of irbesartan have not been fully investigated. Molecular imaging using 18F-FDG and 99mTc-annexin A5 is useful for evaluating inflammation and apoptosis in atherosclerotic plaques. Methods Female apoE−/− mice were treated with irbesartan-mixed (50 mg/kg/day) or irbesartan-free (control) diet for 12 weeks (n = 11/group). One week after the treatment, the mice were co-injected with 14C-FDG and 99mTc-annexin A5, and cryostat sections of the aortic root were prepared. Histochemical examination with Movat's pentachrome (plaque size), Oil Red O (lipid deposition), Mac-2 (macrophage infiltration), and TUNEL (apoptosis) stainings were performed. Dual-tracer autoradiography was carried out to evaluate the levels of 14C-FDG and 99mTc-annexin A5 in plaques (%ID×kg). In vitro experiments were performed to investigate the mechanism underlying the effects. Results Histological examination indicated that irbesartan treatment significantly reduced plaque size (to 56.4%±11.1% of control), intra-plaque lipid deposition (53.6%±20.2%) and macrophage infiltration (61.9%±20.8%) levels, and the number of apoptotic cells (14.5%±16.6%). 14C-FDG (43.0%±18.6%) and 99mTc-annexin A5 levels (45.9%±16.8%) were also significantly reduced by irbesartan treatment. Irbesartan significantly suppressed MCP-1 mRNA expression in TNF-α stimulated THP-1 monocytes (64.8%±8.4% of un-treated cells). PPARγ activation was observed in cells treated with irbesartan (134%±36% at 3 µM to 3329%±218% at 81 µM) by a PPARγ reporter assay system. Conclusions Remissions of inflammation and apoptosis as potential therapeutic effects of irbesartan on atherosclerosis were observed. The usefulness of molecular imaging using 18F-FDG and 99mTc-annexin A5 for evaluating the therapeutic effects of irbesartan on atherosclerosis was also suggested.
Backtracking algorithm for finding t‐designs

A detailed description of an improved version of backtracking algorithms for finding t‐designs proposed by G. B. Khosrovshahi and the authors of this paper [J Combin Designs 10 (2002), 180–194] is presented. The algorithm is then used to determine all 5‐(14,6,3) designs admitting an automorphism of order 13, 11, or 7. It is concluded that a 5‐(14,6,3) design with an automorphism of prime order p exists if and only if p=2,3,7,13. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 11: 240–248, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/jcd.10045
Essays in applied economics: evidence from Brazil

This thesis contains three essays. In the ﬁrst essay, I examine whether a temporary policy can aﬀect long-run house hold behavior. I look at evidence from a nine-month compulsory rationing imposed on Brazilian households’ electricity use in 2001, exploiting diﬀerences in the policy’s implementation across regions as a quasi-experiment to test its short-and long-run impacts on households’ electricity consumption patterns. I ﬁnd that the rationing program led to a persistent reduction in electricity use of 14% even ten years later. Unique household level microdata on appliance ownership and consumption habits suggest that the main source of persistence is changes in the utilization of electricity services, rather than technology adoption. In the second essay, we examine the eﬀects of China’s recent emergence into the world economy in local labour markets in Brazil. Much of the literature have viewed China as a competitor. However, China is also an increasingly large consumer of goods produced abroad, and an increasing share of its import demand is for primary goods. Using census data, we compare trends in migration, unemployment, employment structure (primary/manufacturing/services), informality and participation on Bolsa Familia program in areas aﬀected by the ‘China competition shock’ and the ‘China demand shock’. We ﬁnd signiﬁcant and heterogeneous eﬀects from these two ‘shocks’. In the third essay, we employ an uniﬁed theoretical framework to structurally estimate the eﬀect of changes within China on the production in Brazil and in the rest of the world. Based on the Ricardian model of trade of Costinot et al. (2012), we perform counterfactuals exercises to analyze how countries and industries in Brazil would have performed in the absence of the recent Chinese ascension. Results suggest that changes in China’s comparative advantage hampered manufacturing sector abroad. We ﬁnd no support for the idea of China demand (taste) shock towards raw materials.
FUNDAMENTAL ANALYSIS IN VALUE – GLAMOUR CONTEXTS

This paper investigates investor behaviour in the inter-section between value – glamour investing and fundamental analysis. We propose and find evidence in line with a model of investor’s asymmetric reaction to good and bad news due to confirmation bias. Typical pessimistic value investors could under-react to recent good information but they process bad news quite rationally or even over-confidently. Glamour investors, on the other hand, are often too optimistic to update recent bad information timely but they could fairly price or even over-react to good information. We empirically validate most of the predictions made by this model.
Activism!: Direct Action, Hacktivism and the Future of Society

Many schools of thought assert that Western culture has never been more politically apathetic. Tim Jordan's Activism! refutes this claim. In his powerful polemic, Jordan shows how acts of civil disobedience have come to dominate the political landscape. Because we inhabit such a quickly changing, high-tech and fragmented culture, the single-issue political movements and stable, conservative authorities of the past are continually being questioned. Traditional political battles have been replaced by the popular, collective practices of a new political activism. From Europe to the USA, from Australia to South America, from the Left to the Right, Jordan introduces us to the citizens who make up DIY culture: eco-activists, animal liberators, neo-fascists, ravers, anti-abortionists, squatters, hunt saboteurs and hacktivists. In his view, activism comprises a new ethics of living for the 21st century.
Efficient and Low Complexity Modulation Classification Algorithm for MIMO Systems

This study develops a feature-based Automatic Modulation Classification (AMC) algorithm for spatially multiplexed Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems employing two Higher Order Cumulants (HOCs) of the estimated transmit signal streams as discriminating features and a multiclass Support Vector Machine (SVM) as a classification system. The algorithm under study has the capability to recognize a wide range of modulation schemes without any prior information about the channel state. The classification performance of the proposed algorithm was evaluated via extensive simulations under different operating conditions and was also compared with the one obtained with the optimal Hybrid Likelihood Ratio Test (HLRT) approach. The results show that the proposed algorithm is capable of classifying the considered modulation schemes with good classification accuracy and can achieve performance comparable to that of the HLRT approach while having a significantly lower computational complexity.
A Hata based model utilizing terrain roughness correction formula

This paper proposes a new terrain based formula to correct propagation loss model originally proposed by Hata for the 900 MHz band. This formula consists of an estimator of the standard deviation (σ) along the measuring path in west of Amman city, Jordan. The estimator is calculated by a quadratic regression formula to reflect terrain roughness of the path taken. This estimator is used as a correction factor added to the urban formula proposed by Hata, for both urban and open areas categories. It is reported that the new estimator has less RMSE by an amount of 2.60 dB and 2.78 dB compared to Hata model for urban and open areas, respectively. Such an outcome illustrates the need for a terrain based correction formula in any accurate propagation model.
Corporate Control and Managerial Misrepresentation of Firm Performance

This paper presents two tests of the hypothesis that the managers of management-controlled firms exercise their control over the information contained in annual reports in a manner which may misrepresent firm performance. The first test finds that management-controlled firms have a significantly smaller proportion of years in which the signs of unexpected accounting earnings and unexpected security returns are the same than do owner-controlled firms. The second test finds that the timing of certain accounting policy decisions made by the managers of management-controlled firms is related to the current level of the firm's security return performance.
Trading-off variance and complexity in stochastic gradient descent

Stochastic gradient descent is the method of choice for large-scale machine learning problems, by virtue of its light complexity per iteration. However, it lags behind its non-stochastic counterparts with respect to the convergence rate, due to high variance introduced by the stochastic updates. The popular Stochastic Variance-Reduced Gradient (SVRG) method mitigates this shortcoming, introducing a new update rule which requires infrequent passes over the entire input dataset to compute the full-gradient. In this work, we propose CheapSVRG, a stochastic variance-reduction optimization scheme. Our algorithm is similar to SVRG but instead of the full gradient, it uses a surrogate which can be efficiently computed on a small subset of the input data. It achieves a linear convergence rate ---up to some error level, depending on the nature of the optimization problem---and features a trade-off between the computational complexity and the convergence rate. Empirical evaluation shows that CheapSVRG performs at least competitively compared to the state of the art.
The Ethics of Indigenous Storytelling: using the Torque Game Engine to Support Australian Aboriginal Cultural Heritage

Digital Songlines (DSL) is an Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID) project that is developing protocols, methodologies and toolkits to facilitate the collection, education and sharing of indigenous cultural heritage knowledge. This paper outlines the goals achieved over the last three years in the ethics of developing the Digital Songlines game engine (DSE) toolkit that is used for Australian Indigenous storytelling. The project explores the sharing of indigenous Australian Aboriginal storytelling in a sensitive manner using a game engine. The use of game engine in the field of Cultural Heritage is expanding. They are an important tool for the recording and re-presentation of historically, culturally, and sociologically significant places, infrastructure, and artefacts, as well as the stories that are associated with them in a highly situated context. The DSL implementation of a game engine to share storytelling provides an educational interface. Where the DSL implementation of a game engine in a CH application differs from others is in the nature of the game environment itself. It is modelled on the ‘country’ (the ‘place’ of their heritage which is so important to the clients’ collective identity) and authentic fauna and flora that provides a highly contextualised setting for the stories to be told. This paper provides an overview of the ethics behind and the development of the DSL game engine.
Human Papillomavirus Infections are Common and Predict Mortality in a Retrospective Cohort Study of Taiwanese Patients With Oral Cavity Cancer

AbstractHuman papillomavirus (HPV) infections are deemed to play a role in the pathogenesis of oral cavity cancer (OCC). However, their exact prevalence and clinical significance remain unclear. Herein, we investigated the prevalence and prognostic value of HPV infections in a large sample of Taiwanese OCC patients.This study was designed as a retrospective cohort study. Between 2004 and 2011, we identified 1002 consecutive patients with newly diagnosed OCC who were scheduled for standard treatment. HPV genotyping was performed in tumor specimens using polymerase chain reaction-based HPV blots. To investigate the temporal trends of HPV infections and their impact on 5-year overall survival (OS), patients were divided into 2 cohorts according to calendar periods: “2004 cohort” (2004–2007; n = 466) and “2008 cohort” (2008–2011; n = 536). Univariate and multivariate Cox regression models were also used to identify the independent predictors of OS in the 2 cohorts. A weighted risk score was assigned to each factor based on the range of their corresponding hazard ratios and validated in both cohorts using the c-statistic.The overall prevalence of HPV infections was 19%, with a trend toward decreasing rates from 2004 to 2011. In patients without risky oral habits, the 5-year OS rate of HPV-positive patients was significantly lower than that of HPV-negative cases (49% vs 80%; P = 0.021). In the 2004 cohort, multivariate analysis identified HPV16, pathological T3/T4, pathological N1/N2, and extracapsular spread as independent adverse prognostic factors for OS. In the 2008 cohort, pathological N1/N2, pathological stage III/IV, and histological tumor depth >8 mm were identified as independent adverse prognostic factors. Using a weighted grading system incorporating HPV16 infection, we devised a prognostic index that identified 4 distinct risk categories with 5-year OS rates ranging from 25% to 89% (c-statistic = 0.76) in the 2004 cohort. The validity of the index was internally confirmed in the 2008 cohort (c-statistic = 0.71). We conclude that HPV infections are common in Taiwanese OCC patients and predict 5-year OS. If independently validated, our composite prognostic score comprising HPV16 infection may be useful for allocating OCC patients to risk-adapted therapies.