Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Labor Market Power of Exporting Firms: Evidence from Latin America

Using establishment-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey, we assess the market power of exporting firms across 16 countries in Latin America. Leveraging information on export destinations, as well as exchange rate and price data, we construct exchange rate-driven shocks to the marginal revenue product of individual firms. By examining firms' employment and wage responses, we estimate the inverse elasticity of the labor supply they face a direct indicator of labor market power. In our preferred specification, we estimate that workers employed in exporting firms produce on the margin 83% more than what they earn as wage. We investigate the correlations between labor market power and firm characteristics, country attributes, and labor market institutions and regulations. We find that labor market power is higher for firms in countries where unions, collective bargaining, and unemployment protection are less prevalent.
Patient characteristics infected with Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus infection in a tertiary hospital

Background: In April 2014, a surge in cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection was seen in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The aim of this study is to describe the demographic and clinical features, laboratory and radiological findings of MERS-CoV patients identified during this outbreak in a single tertiary hospital. Methods: All laboratory-confirmed MERS-CoV cases who presented to King Faisal Specialist Hospital from March 1, 2014, to May 30, 2014, were identified. Patients' charts were reviewed for demographic information, comorbidities, clinical presentations, and outcomes. Results: A total of 39 patients with confirmed MERS-CoV infection were identified. Twenty-one were male (54%), aged 40 ± 19 years and included 3 (8%) pediatric patients (<18-year-old). 16 (41%) patients were health care workers. Twenty-one (53%) patients were previously healthy whereas eighteen (47%) had at least one comorbidity. The predominant comorbidities included hypertension (31%), diabetes (26%), respiratory (23%), and renal disease (18%). Thirty patients (81%) were symptomatic at presentation, fever (69%) being the most common complaint. The overall mortality rate was 28%. In univariate analysis, older age, hypertension, and chronic kidney disease were associated with mortality. Conclusions: MERS-CoV presentation varies from asymptomatic infection to severe respiratory disease causing death. Future studies to identify the risk factors for worse outcome are needed.
Promotion of Orange-Fleshed Sweet Potato Increased Vitamin A Intakes and Reduced the Odds of Low Retinol-Binding Protein among Postpartum Kenyan Women123

Background: Orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) improves vitamin A (VA) status of young children; research with pregnant and lactating women is limited. Objective: We examined the effectiveness of the Mama SASHA (Sweetpotato Action for Security and Health in Africa) program to improve nutrition knowledge, diets, and nutritional status of pregnant and lactating women (PLW) in Western Kenya. Methods: Eight health facilities were allocated to the Mama SASHA intervention or comparison arms. PLW in intervention facilities received enhanced nutrition counseling at health clinics, were linked with community-based maternal support groups, and received vouchers for OFSP vine cuttings. Control PLW received clinic-based nutrition counseling only. A total of 505 women in early and midpregnancy, attending their first antenatal care visit, and with no previous engagement in project activities were enrolled from the 8 facilities. Nutrition and health-seeking knowledge, food security, dietary patterns, and anthropometric measurements were collected at 4 time points at ≤9 mo postpartum. VA intakes were assessed with multipass 24-h recalls in a subsample of 206 mothers at 8–10 mo postpartum. VA status was assessed by using serum retinol-binding protein (RBP). Impacts were estimated with multilevel mixed models adjusted for clustering and differences at enrollment. Results: At enrollment, 22.9% of women had RBP <1.17 μmol/L. By 9 mo postpartum, intervention women had significantly higher intakes of VA [adjusted difference = 297.0 retinol activity equivalent (RAE) units; 95% CI: 82, 513 RAE units; P = 0.01; n = 206], greater consumption of VA-rich fruit and vegetables in the previous 7 d (difference-in-difference estimate: 0.40 d; 95% CI: 0.23, 0.56 d; P < 0.01), and a 45% reduction in the odds of RBP <1.17 μmol/L (OR: 0.55; 95% CI: 0.33, 0.92; P = 0.01). Conclusion: Promotion of OFSP to PLW through health services is a feasible strategy to improve women’s nutrition knowledge, VA intakes, and maternal RBP.
PENGARUH PENGGUNAAN SISTEM INFORMASI DAN LINGKUNGAN KERJA TERHADAP MOTIVASI KERJA SERTA DAMPAKNYA PADA KINERJA PEGAWAI KANTOR KEMENTERIAN AGAMA KABUPATEN ACEH BARAT DAYA

Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengetahui pengaruh penggunaan sistem informasi dan lingkungan kerja terhadap motivasi kerja serta dampaknya pada kinerja pegawai Kantor Kementerian Agama Kabupaten Aceh Barat Daya. Responden dalam penelitian ini berjumlah 52 orang yang diambil secara sensus. Data dikumpulkan dengan menggunakan kuesioner. Selanjutnya data yang diperoleh dianalisa dengan menggunakan uji – t, uji – F, dan path analisys. Dari hasil penelitian diperoleh bahwa penggunaan sistem informasi berpengaruh signifkan terhadap motivasi kerja sebesar 0.226, lingkungan kerja berpengaruh signifikan terhadap motivasi kerja sebesar 0.111 dan motivasi kerja berpengaruh signifikan terhadap kinerja pegawai sebesar 0.193. Secara langsung penggunaan sistem informasi dapat mempengaruhi secara signifikan kinerja pegawai sebesar 0.263, lingkungan kerja secara langsung tidak signifikan berpengaruh terhadap kinerja pegawai dan secara tidak langsung penggunaan sistem informasi berpengaruh terhadap kinerja pegawai melalui motivasi kerja sebesar 0.209 sedangkan pengaruh tidak langsung lingkungan kerja terhadap kinerja pegawai melalui motivasi kerja sebesar 0.146. Variabel yang paling besar pengaruhnya terhadap kinerja pegawai Kantor Kementerian Agama Kabupaten Aceh Barat Daya adalah variabel penggunaan sistem informasi sedangkan variabel yang paling besar pengaruhnya terhadap motivasi kerja juga variabel penggunaan sistem informasi. Dalam meningkatkan motivasi kerja pegawai Kantor Kementerian Agama Kabupaten Aceh Barat Daya perlu memperhatikan kembali sistem informasi dan lingkungan kerja. Kata Kunci: Penggunaan Sistem Informasi, Lingkungan Kerja, Motivasi Kerja dan Kinerja Pegawai.
Mannose-binding lectin-low genotypes are associated with milder systemic and immunological disease expression in primary Sjögren's syndrome.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the association of mannose-binding lectin (MBL)-low genotypes with the clinical and immunological expression of primary SS. METHODS Eighty-one patients with primary SS who fulfilled the 2002 classification criteria were included in the study. MBL2 polymorphisms were investigated by sequence-based DNA typing of the promoter and exon 1. Genotypes 0/0, 0/XA or XA/XA were considered as MBL-low and XA/A, A/0 and A/A as MBL-sufficient. Control groups included 46 patients who exclusively fulfilled the 1993 SS criteria, 114 SLE patients and 104 healthy individuals. RESULTS Twelve (15%) SS patients had MBL-low genotypes, of whom six (7%) had genotype 0/XA, five (6%) had genotype 0/0 and one (1%) had genotype XA/XA. A higher prevalence of the XA/A genotype (32 vs 17%, P = 0.01) was found in primary SS patients in comparison with SLE patients. No patient with primary SS carrying MBL-low genotypes had purpura, glomerulonephritis or neurological involvement (0 vs 29%, P = 0.025). Immunologically, patients carrying MBL-low genotypes had a lower frequency of anti-Ro/SS-A antibodies (17 vs 55%, P = 0.014), anti-La/SS-B antibodies (8 vs 48%, P = 0.009) and low C4/C3 levels (0 vs 32%, P = 0.016). No patient with primary SS carrying the homozygous MBL-deficient genotype 0/0 had anti-Ro/SS-A or anti-La/SS-B antibodies, low C3/C4 levels or circulating cryoglobulins. CONCLUSION SS patients with MBL-low genotypes have a less pronounced systemic and immunological disease expression in comparison with those carrying MBL-sufficient genotypes. In primary SS, MBL deficiency may represent a protective factor against the development of more aggressive autoimmune damage.
Non-local Right Node Raising: an Analysis using Delayed Tree-Local MC-TAG

In this paper, we show that the analysis of right-node-raising (RNR) in coordinate structures proposed in Sarkar and Joshi (1996) can be extended to non-local RNR if it is augmented with delayed tree locality (Chiang and Scheffler, 2008), but not with flexible composition (Joshi et al., 2003). In the proposed delayed tree-local analysis, we define multicomponent (MC) elementary tree sets with contraction set specification. We propose that a member of each of the MC sets participates in forming a derivational unit called contraction path in the derivation structure, and that contraction paths must be derivationally local to each other for the relevant contraction to be licensed.
Approximate Continuous Aggregation via Time Window Based Compression and Sampling in WSNs

In many applications continuous aggregation of sensed data is usually required. The existing aggregation schemes usually compute every aggregation result in a continuous aggregation either by a complete aggregation procedure or by partial data update at each epoch. To further reduce the energy cost, we propose a sampling-based approach with time window based linear regression for approximate continuous aggregation. We analyze the approximation error of the aggregation results and discuss the determinations of parameters in our approach. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of our approach.
Caregiving Strain and the Desire to Institutionalize Family Members with Alzheimer's Disease

This research explores whether the strain experienced by caregivers of relatives with Alzheimer's disease will be strongly related to the desire of families to institutionalize their older members. The desire of a caregiver to institutionalize a patient with Alzheimer's disease was found to be greater when the caregiver experiences increased strain or burden, when a patient is widowed, when there is more physical labor involved in caregiving tasks, and when the patient lives alone. Intensity of family strain (or felt stress) can best be predicted by the availability to the caregiver of social support: Less support implies more strain. However, for male caregiving groups and for all black caregivers, strain does not play a significant role in predicting the desire to institutionalize.
First-Price Auctions with Budget Constraints

Consider a first-price, sealed-bid auction with interdependent valuations and private budget constraints. Private budget constraints introduce subtle strategic tradeoffs with first-order consequences for equilibrium bidding. In a pure-strategy, symmetric equilibrium, agents may adopt discontinuous bidding strategies resulting in a stratification of competition along the budget dimension. In an asymmetric setting, equilibria in “nondecreasing” strategies exist, albeit in a qualified sense. Private budgets introduce significant confounds for the interpretation of bidding data due to their interaction with risk preferences and their countervailing strategic implications.
A Matter of Trust: Confidentiality in Therapeutic Relationships during Psychological and Medical Treatment in Children and Adolescents with Mental Disorders

Background: Confidentiality is a crucial ethical principle in therapy, particularly for children and adolescents, yet their perception of it remains understudied. We aimed to explore minors’ perspectives and attributions on confidentiality in psychological and medical treatment. Methods: We interviewed 11 pediatric patients aged 7 to 15 and used reflexive thematic analysis to analyze their responses. Results: Four main themes were extracted from the data: (1) confidentiality and uncertainty regarding what information will be shared with clinicians and parents; (2) consequences of breaching confidentiality, encompassing breaches of confidentiality in the past and their negative effects on interactions with parents and health professionals; (3) exceptions to confidentiality, including understanding the limits of confidentiality; and (4) autonomy and self-determination, reflecting the desire for involvement in medical decisions. Conclusions: Explanations about confidentiality rules and limits, especially with younger children, are crucial. This is particularly important because it is fundamental to promote children’s development and self-determination through increasing autonomy, as well as to provide a sense of security and respect through transparent rules. A single educational session on confidentiality at the outset of therapy is insufficient; ongoing conversations are needed to reinforce understanding and promote autonomy.
Effect of the size of cuttings (length and diameter) on rooting in cuttings of apple clonal rootstock Merton 793

The study was conducted in net house conditions of fruit Nursery block of Department of Fruit Science, Dr. Y. S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry Nauni, Solan H.P. during 2012-2013 in order to evaluate the effect of size of cuttings (length and diameter) on rooting in cuttings of apple clonal rootstock Merton 793. Cuttings of length (L) viz. 15 cm, 25 cm, 35 cm, 45 cm and diameter ranges (D) viz. 0.75 cm â€“ 1.00 cm, 1.00 cm â€“ 1.25 cm, 1.25 â€“ 1.50 cm were taken. The experiment was laid out in randomized block design (factorial). The cuttings were treated with 2500 ppm IBA (Indole â€“ 3 â€“ butyric acid) as quick dip (10 â€“ 15 seconds) before planting. The results revealed that the cuttings with treatment combination of length (35 cm) and diameter (1.25 cm â€“ 1.50 cm) recorded the highest rooting of cuttings (65 %), number of primary roots (5.00), length of primary roots (28.43 cm), diameter of primary roots (3.25 mm), fresh weight of roots (3.67 g) and dry weight of roots (2.59 g). Hence it is concluded that cuttings of length of 35 cm and diameter of 1.25 cm to 1.50 cm was most suitable for propagation. However, the cuttings of shorter length and diameter, are also able to result in rooting with lower success, therefore, these cuttings would be helpful in case of scarce availability of propagating material.
On the Gap Between Strict-Saddles and True Convexity: An Omega(log d) Lower Bound for Eigenvector Approximation

We prove a \emph{query complexity} lower bound on rank-one principal component analysis (PCA). We consider an oracle model where, given a symmetric matrix $M \in \mathbb{R}^{d \times d}$, an algorithm is allowed to make $T$ \emph{exact} queries of the form $w^{(i)} = Mv^{(i)}$ for $i \in \{1,\dots,T\}$, where $v^{(i)}$ is drawn from a distribution which depends arbitrarily on the past queries and measurements $\{v^{(j)},w^{(j)}\}_{1 \le j \le i-1}$. We show that for a small constant $\epsilon$, any adaptive, randomized algorithm which can find a unit vector $\widehat{v}$ for which $\widehat{v}^{\top}M\widehat{v} \ge (1-\epsilon)\|M\|$, with even small probability, must make $T = \Omega(\log d)$ queries. In addition to settling a widely-held folk conjecture, this bound demonstrates a fundamental gap between convex optimization and "strict-saddle" non-convex optimization of which PCA is a canonical example: in the former, first-order methods can have dimension-free iteration complexity, whereas in PCA, the iteration complexity of gradient-based methods must necessarily grow with the dimension. Our argument proceeds via a reduction to estimating the rank-one spike in a deformed Wigner model. We establish lower bounds for this model by developing a "truncated" analogue of the $\chi^2$ Bayes-risk lower bound of Chen et al.
Traumatic brain injury and PTSD screening efforts evaluated using latent class analysis.

OBJECTIVE To empirically identify latent classes of service members according to persistent postconcussive symptom patterns and to characterize the identified classes relative to other postdeployment variables including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and mild traumatic brain injury (TBI) screening results. Such comparisons may directly inform policy regarding these routine assessments and translate to improved treatment decisions. METHOD Self-report data were obtained for 12,581 combat-exposed male U.S. Navy and Marine Corps personnel who returned from deployment in 2008-2009 and completed a Post-Deployment Health Assessment (PDHA) and an associated Post-Deployment Health Reassessment (PDHRA). Persistent postconcussive symptoms indicated on the PDHRA were used as manifest variables in a latent class analysis yielding 4 distinct classes: systemic, cognitive/behavioral, comorbid, and nonpresenting. RESULTS Although the nonpresenting class endorsed few or no postconcussive symptoms, the systemic and cognitive/behavioral classes displayed elevated likelihoods of neurological and mental health symptoms, respectively. Members of the comorbid class had an increased probability of reporting a wide range of symptoms across both domains. Characterization of identified classes suggested that class membership may indicate the presence or absence of persistent conditions resulting from head injury and/or mental health issues. Under this assumption, estimated class membership probabilities implied a rate of probable neurological injury among this sample to be 17.9%, whereas the standard assessments aimed at identifying repercussions of mild TBI reported a positive screening rate of only 13.1%. CONCLUSIONS Findings suggest that the routinely administered PDHA and PDHRA appear to underestimate the true prevalence of service members experiencing postdeployment health problems. Supplemental items or an alternative screening algorithm incorporating persistent postconcussive symptoms may enable identification of additional cases requiring treatment following return from deployment.
Rho is Required for the Initiation of Calcium Signaling and Phagocytosis by Fcγ Receptors in Macrophages

Phagocytosis of bacteria by macrophages and neutrophils is an essential component of host defense against infection. The mechanism whereby the interaction of opsonized particles with Fcγ receptors triggers the engulfment of opsonized particles remains incompletely understood, although activation of tyrosine kinases has been recognized as an early step. Recent studies in other systems have demonstrated that tyrosine kinases can in turn signal the activation of small GTPases of the ras superfamily. We therefore investigated the possible role of Rho in Fc receptor–mediated phagocytosis. To this end we microinjected J774 macrophages with C3 exotoxin from Clostridium botulinum, which ADP-ribosylates and inactivates Rho. C3 exotoxin induced the retraction of filopodia, the disappearance of focal complexes, and a global decrease in the F-actin content of J774 cells. In addition, these cells exhibited increased spreading and the formation of vacuolar structures. Importantly, inactivation of Rho resulted in the complete abrogation of phagocytosis. Inhibition of Fcγ receptor–mediated phagocytosis by C3 exotoxin was confirmed in COS cells, which become phagocytic upon transfection of the FcγRIIA receptor. Rho was found to be essential for the accumulation of phosphotyrosine and of F-actin around phagocytic cups and for Fcγ receptor–mediated Ca2+ signaling. The clustering of receptors in response to opsonin, an essential step in Fcγ-induced signaling, was the earliest event shown to be inhibited by C3 exotoxin. The effect of the toxin was specific, since clustering and internalization of transferrin receptors were unaffected by microinjection of C3. These data identify a role for small GTPases in Fcγ receptor–mediated phagocytosis by leukocytes.
Estrogen levels do not correlate with improvement in cognition.

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether an association exists between estradiol and estrone levels and measures of cognitive functioning in women with Alzheimer disease (AD) treated with conjugated equine estrogen (Premarin; Wyeth-Ayerst, Philadelphia, Pa). METHODS We studied 120 postmenopausal women who underwent hysterectomy and who had AD treated with Premarin for 1 year. Plasma estradiol and estrone levels were determined at multiple points during the 1-year treatment trial. The change from baseline level at 2 and 12 months was associated with the change score on 7 different assessments of cognitive functioning. RESULTS At baseline, estradiol levels were low and there were no associations between the estradiol level and the 7 neuropsychological measures. A similar pattern was observed for estrone treatment. During treatment with 0.625 mg/d of Premarin, estradiol levels increased about 4-fold; while receiving 1.25 mg/d of Premarin, estradiol levels increased about 8-fold. A similar pattern was seen with estrone treatment. For both estradiol and estrone levels, there were no significant associations between the change in plasma level and the change in neuropsychological test scores at either 2 or 12 months. CONCLUSION Although Premarin elevated estradiol and estrone levels, there was no association between hormone levels and cognitive functioning after either 2 or 12 months of treatment.
Efficiency Analysis of Basic Health Units: A Comparison of Developed and Deprived Regions in Azad Jammu and Kashmir

Abstract Background The current study aims to measure the efficiency of primary health care units completed in health sector of rural Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and to compare it across developed and deprived regions. Methods Operational efficiency and beneficiary efficiency of a total of 32 Basic Health Units (BHUs) were measured through Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) by using different input and output variables. Independent sample T-test was applied to compare these efficiencies across developed and deprived regions. Results The study could find no significant difference of operational efficiency across developed and deprived regions, however a significant difference was found across regions from beneficiary perspective (P= 0.044). Conclusion The study concludes that BHUs of deprived region are more efficient from beneficiary perspective, however there is no significant difference of operational efficiency across the regions.
Modality-Agnostic fMRI Decoding of Vision and Language

Previous studies have shown that it is possible to map brain activation data of subjects viewing images onto the feature representation space of not only vision models (modality-specific decoding) but also language models (cross-modal decoding). In this work, we introduce and use a new large-scale fMRI dataset (~8,500 trials per subject) of people watching both images and text descriptions of such images. This novel dataset enables the development of modality-agnostic decoders: a single decoder that can predict which stimulus a subject is seeing, irrespective of the modality (image or text) in which the stimulus is presented. We train and evaluate such decoders to map brain signals onto stimulus representations from a large range of publicly available vision, language and multimodal (vision+language) models. Our findings reveal that (1) modality-agnostic decoders perform as well as (and sometimes even better than) modality-specific decoders (2) modality-agnostic decoders mapping brain data onto representations from unimodal models perform as well as decoders relying on multimodal representations (3) while language and low-level visual (occipital) brain regions are best at decoding text and image stimuli, respectively, high-level visual (temporal) regions perform well on both stimulus types.