Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of two techniques for single-stage treatment of Hirschsprung disease in neonates

Introduction: The aim of this study is to determine the incidence, morbidity and functional outcome of two techniques for Hirschsprung disease (single-stage Duhamel pull-through and tans-anal pull-through) in the neonatal age group. Method: All the neonates with Hirschsprung disease with short aganglionic segment (transition zone at recto-sigmoid junction) admitted during the last 6 years were included. A total of 44 cases were included in the study of which 24 were treated by Duhamel pullthrough (group A) and 20 were treated with trans-anal pull-through (TEPT, group B). The time of operation, acceptance of first oral feed, duration of hospital stay, complications and anal continence were evaluated for both procedures. Result: There was no difference in age and sex and length of the aganglionic segment of bowel. The average operative time was 140-180 min. in group A and 120-170 min. in group B. Per-oral feed was started on the 5-7th day in group A and on the 5-6th day in group B. Hospital stay was longer in group A whereas complications were more common in group B and were found to be statistically significant. Anal continence was almost similar in both groups. Conclusion: Single-stage Duhamel pull-through operation is better than trans-anal pull-through operation in long-term follow-up although duration of hospital stay was shorter in TEPT.
Proteins in Mixed Solvents: A Molecular-level Perspective

We present a statistical mechanical approach for quantifying thermodynamic properties of proteins in mixed solvents. This approach, based on molecular dynamics simulations which incorporate all atom models and the theory of preferential binding, allows us to compute transfer free energies with experimental accuracy and does not incorporate any adjustable parameters. Specifically, we applied our approach to the model proteins RNase A and T1 and the solvent components water, glycerol, and urea. We found that the observed differences in the binding of glycerol and urea to RNase T1 and A are predominantly a consequence of density differences in the first coordination shell of the protein with the cosolvents, but the second solvation shell also contributes to the overall binding coefficients. Our approach allows us to determine the contributions of individual sites on a protein to preferential binding. One conclusion from determining these contributions is that hydrophobic amino acids in RNase T1 tend to bind .
Macroeconomic Regimes

We estimate a New-Keynesian macro model accommodating regime-switching behavior in monetary policy and in macro shocks. Key to our estimation strategy is the use of survey-based expectations for inflation and output. Output and inflation shocks shift to the low volatility regime around 1985 and 1990, respectively. However, we also identify multiple shifts between accommodating and active monetary policy regimes, which play an as important role as shock volatility in driving the volatility of the macro variables. We provide new estimates of the onset and demise of the Great Moderation and quantify the relative role played by macro-shocks and monetary policy. The estimated rational expectations model exhibits indeterminacy in the mean square stability sense, mainly because monetary policy is excessively passive.
Evaluation of a one-dose package medication support system for community-based elderly patients and eldercare facilities.

PURPOSE Results of an evaluation of a one-dose package medication support system (ODP-MSS) for medication support and telecare home monitoring of elderly persons are reported. METHODS ODP-MSS units were provided to 10 elderly patients living at home, with adherence assistance provided by family members or other medication supporters in response to telephone alerts. In addition, ODP-MSS units were installed in 2 group homes. At the end of the designated study periods, device data logs were analyzed, and study participants were interviewed or surveyed regarding the impact of ODP-MSS use. RESULTS Overall, 2 patients were reported to have missed medication doses due to forgetfulness; in both cases, alerted medication supporters called the patients and reminded them to take their medicine. Five home-dwelling patients and 5 supporters reported that the ODP-MSS provided useful reminders; 4 patients and 7 supporters indicated that calls to supporters were useful as a telecare home monitoring system. Eleven group home staff members reported that the ODP-MSS was useful in reducing medication errors and the need for medication assistance. CONCLUSION An ODP device plus follow-up calls from a medication supporter helped prevent missed doses resulting from patients' forgetfulness and may serve as a useful component of telecare home monitoring for elderly people living independently at home. The ODP device was also useful for reducing the burdens associated with medication support and medication errors on staff members of group homes for elderly patients with dementia.
A multilevel investigation and qualitative exploration of factors contributing to change commitment

Research in organizational change has suggested that employees’ support is needed to succeed in implementing change. This study investigated change commitment, which reflects this support and includes affective, continuance and normative change commitment. The study explored the impact of factors such as Human Resource practices and the role of the immediate supervisor on change commitment, based on the model of institutionalizing change interventions described by Armenakis, Harris, & Feild (1999). The aim was to provide empirical support for specific relations in this model and simultaneously contribute knowledge about the role of these factors. Data was gathered through interviews and questionnaires and analyzed by means of qualitative content analysis and multilevel linear regression. Participants were 34 leaders and 213 subordinates from a large Norwegian government organization. The study found that some HR practices contributed to change commitment among employees. Furthermore, the immediate supervisor organizational citizenship behavior proved important solely for affective change commitment. In addition, groups differed significantly only in this form of change commitment. Qualitative research investigated categories such as immediate supervisor attributes and their facilitating function during change. Further research should explore additional HR practices and supervisor attributes and test the model for institutionalizing change interventions in other contexts.
Prognostic value of Ki67: comparison of the proliferation index between meningiomas with and without infiltration of glial tissue.

BACKGROUND Although generally considered benign, meningiomas can cause significant morbidity and mortality. Histologic grade is the most useful morphologic predictor of recurrence. OBJECTIVES To compare Ki67 labeling index between meningioma grade I and meningioma grade II with brain invasion. METHODS We analyzed 20 primary meningioma, 10 of which were grade I and 10 of which were grade II. Ki67 proliferative indices were determined in all cases. RESULTS The patient population consisted of 9 males and 11 females with mean age of 60 years. For meningioma grade I, the Ki67 labeling index varied between 1 and 15% with an average of 3.1%. A diagnosis of gradeII meningiomas was made solely on the basis of brain invasion. The immunohistochemical study noted that the Ki67 index varied between 1 and 20% with an average of 6,8%. CONCLUSION The Ki67 labeling index shows a significant increase from grade I to grade II. It may provide useful prognostic information.
A 3.6 $\mu$ s Latency Asynchronous Frame-Free Event-Driven Dynamic-Vision-Sensor

This paper presents a 128 × 128 dynamic vision sensor. Each pixel detects temporal changes in the local illumination. A minimum illumination temporal contrast of 10% can be detected. A compact preamplification stage has been introduced that allows to improve the minimum detectable contrast over previous designs, while at the same time reducing the pixel area by 1/3. The pixel responds to illumination changes in less than 3.6 μs. The ability of the sensor to capture very fast moving objects, rotating at 10 K revolutions per second, has been verified experimentally. A frame-based sensor capable to achieve this, would require at least 100 K frames per second.
Some Properties of Empirical Risk Minimization Over Donsker Classes

Abstract : We study properties of algorithms which minimize (or almost-minimise) empirical error over a Donsker class of functions. we show that the L2-diameter of the set of almost-minimizers is converging to zero in probability. Therefore, as the number of samples grows, it is becoming unlikely that adding a point (or a number of points) to the training set will result in a large jump (in L2 distance) to a new hypothesis. We also show that under some conditions the expected errors of the almost-minimizers are becoming close with a rate faster than pi(exp -1/2).
Internet of Plants Application for Smart Agriculture

Nowadays, Internet of Things (IoT) is receiving a great attention due to its potential strength and ability to be integrated into any complex system. The IoT provides the acquired data from the environment to the Internet through the service providers. This further helps users to view the numerical or plotted data. In addition, it also allows objects which are located in long distances to be sensed and controlled remotely through embedded devices which are important in agriculture domain. Developing such a system for the IoT is a very complex task due to the diverse variety of devices, link layer technologies, and services. This paper proposes a practical approach to acquiring data of temperature, humidity and soil moisture of plants. In order to accomplish this, we developed a prototype device and an android application which acquires physical data and sends it to cloud. Moreover, in the subsequent part of current research work, we have focused towards a temperature forecasting application. Forecasting metrological parameters have a profound influence on crop growth, development and yields of agriculture. In response to this fact, an application is developed for 10 days ahead maximum and minimum temperatures forecasting using a type of recurrent neural network.
THE EFFECT OF SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE TO INCREASE ORGANIZATION PERFORMANCE THROUGH WORKERS JOB SATISFACTION

Spiritual intelligence enables people to live with the greater meaning and depth and to look for a meaning beyond the physical needs and a low-level life in their business. Spiritual intelligence will also assist the workers in achieving their happiness and satisfaction with their current jobs.In the long run, spiritual intelligence will help the organizations to achieve business objectives and allow the employees to flourish within the organization. The main objective of this study is to analyze the effect of worker’s spiritual intelligence to achieve organization performance using workers job satisfaction as mediating variable. This study is choosing some management practices in Indonesian biggest developer companies. Respondents in this research consist of workers in all business units owned by those developer companies. All the data is statistically analyzed using the Structural Equation Method model. Findings of this research indicate that there’s a positive effect between spiritual intelligence workers and job satisfaction. The study also proved that as long as the workers satisfied with their jobs, their productivity will increase and finally the organization performance will also improve. The future research should consider the importance role of the leader for organization performance by setting-up core value within organization. This study is the first, to the researcher’s knowledge, to see the effect of all dimensions of spiritual intelligence into workers job satisfaction and finally to improve organization performance.
Coping as a Mediator Between Losing Face and Depressive and Social Anxiety Symptoms Among Asian Americans

Applying the proximal–distal framework, we were interested in whether the relationship between loss of face (LOF) concerns to depression and social anxiety were mediated by coping among 154 Asian Americans (AA). Utilizing a convenience sample from an online survey of AA, we ran ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions to examine whether direct and indirect coping explained the relationship between LOF concerns, depression, and social anxiety. LOF was positively associated with both direct and indirect coping. LOF also was positively associated with depression and social anxiety. The relationship between LOF and depression was significantly mediated by indirect coping but not direct coping. Higher levels of indirect coping explained the relationship between LOF and depression. In addition, the relationship between LOF and social anxiety was significantly mediated by indirect coping and direct coping. The relationship between LOF and social anxiety was partially explained by lower levels of direct coping and higher levels of indirect coping. LOF, however, continued to significantly predict social anxiety even after accounting for coping strategies. These results suggest that the LOF has a distal relationship to depression and social anxiety. Coping has a more proximal relationship to depression and social anxiety. By identifying proximal factors to depression and social anxiety, it is possible to reduce symptoms of depression and social anxiety among AA without mitigating the endorsement of traditional cultural values.
Self-control at College

In this paper we develop the observation that college students may suffer from self-control problems (O'Donoghue and Rabin (2007)). In our model students face a self-control problem when making choices about how to learn: students acquire education using different combinations of study and tuition (S and T). We consider an ‘asymmetric’ self-control problem, where students can commit to T but not S and investigate how this affects their decisions. We show that the degree of self-awareness interacts with how students learn and how this determines the ability to self-correct by precommitment. Finally we show how the appropriate pricing of tuition can ameliorate these problems.
Investigation of the effect of age of onset on amblyopia.

This research aimed to investigate if age of onset affects the pathogenesis of amblyopia. Amblyopic subjects were compared with normal controls. Strabismic amblyopes were assigned to early or late onset groups on the basis of detailed clinical history. Confirmatory histories were obtained from parents where possible. Contrast Sensitivity (CS) to a 3.2 cyc/deg (cpd) sinusoidal grating pattern was recorded. Monocular pattern appearance visual evoked potentials (VEP) at five contrast levels were recorded. Luminance and chromatic CS, motion onset and colour VEPs were recorded. Late onset amblyopes showed reduced CS at 3.2 cpd for the amblyopic, but increased CS for the fellow eye compared to normal. Late onset amblyopic eye VEP CII latencies were longer and amplitudes smaller than normal. CII responses in amblyopic and fellow eyes of the early onset group were of shorter latency and smaller amplitude than normal. Late onset amblyopes had reduced luminance CS of the amblyopic compared to fellow eyes. Fellow eye chromatic CS was lower than normal in all eyes. The (M-P)/M ratio was greater in the late onset amblyopic eyes. This ratio was increased in all fellow eyes compared to normal. All amblyopes had shorter N200 latencies for both eyes compared to normal. Late onset amblyopic eye VEP N130 latency was longer than in early amblyopes. Early onset amblyopic eye N130 amplitude was smaller than fellow eye amplitude. Results were independent of visual acuity. Different patterns of contrast abnormality occur in early and late onset amblyopes. Late onset amblyopes have a greater parvocellular (P) deficit. Magnocellular (M) results suggest an enhancement of this pathway in all amblyopes. Fellow eyes of amblyopes are abnormal. Examining children during treatment for amblyopia would develop these hypotheses. The changes observed in the M and P pathways could be used to develop treatment strategies in the future.
Heterogeneous Couples, Household Interactions and Labor Supply Elasticities of Married Women

This paper estimates labor supply elasticities of married men and women allowing for heterogeneity among couples (in educational attainments of husbands and wives) and explicitly modeling how household members interact and make labor supply decisions. We find that the labor supply decisions of husbands and wives are interdependent unless both spouses are highly educated (college or above). Couples with high education, the labor supply decisions of husband and wife are jointly determined only if they have pre-school age children. We also find that labor supply elasticities differ greatly between households. The participation own-wage elasticity is largest (0.77) for women with low education married to men with low education, and smallest (0.03) for women with high education married to men with low education. The participation own-wage elasticities for women with low education married to highly educated men and for women with high education married to highly educated men are similar and fall between these two extremes (about 0.30 for each). For all types of couples, participation non-labor family income elasticity is small. We also find that participation cross-wage elasticities for married women are relatively small (less than -0.05) if they are married to men with low education and larger (-0.37) if they are married to highly educated men. Allowing for heterogeneity across couples yields an overall participation wage elasticity of 0.56, a cross wage elasticity of -0.13 and an income elasticity of -0.006 for married women. The analysis in this paper provides a natural framework to study how changes in educational attainments and household structure affect aggregate labor supply elasticities.
Calibration of the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer Proportional Counter Array

We present the calibration and background model for the Proportional Counter Array on board the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer. The energy calibration is systematics-limited below 10 keV, with deviations from a power-law fit to the Crab Nebula plus pulsar of less than 1%. Unmodeled variations in the instrumental background amount to less than 2% of the observed background below 10 keV and less than 1% between 10 and 20 keV. Individual photon arrival times are accurate to 4.4 μs at all times during the mission and to 2.5 μs after 1997 April 29. The peak pointing direction of the five collimators is known to a precision of a few arcseconds.
10‐Year Associations Between Tumor Necrosis Factor Receptors 1 and 2 and Cardiovascular Events in Patients With Stable Coronary Heart Disease: A CLARICOR (Effect of Clarithromycin on Mortality and Morbidity in Patients With Ischemic Heart Disease) Trial Substudy

Background We aimed to assess the associations and predictive powers between the soluble receptors for tumor necrosis factor (TNF)‐α (TNFR1 and TNFR2) and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with stable coronary heart disease. Methods and Results CLARICOR (Effect of Clarithromycin on Mortality and Morbidity in Patients With Ischemic Heart Disease) is a randomized clinical trial comparing clarithromycin with placebo in patients with stable coronary heart disease. The primary outcome was a composite of nonfatal acute myocardial infarction, unstable angina pectoris, cerebrovascular disease, and all‐cause mortality. Patients were followed up for 10 years; discovery sample, those assigned placebo (1204 events in n=1998); and replication sample, those assigned clarithromycin (1220 events in n=1979). We used Cox regression adjusted for C‐reactive protein level, established cardiovascular risk factors, kidney function, and cardiovascular drugs. After adjustments, higher serum levels of TNFR1 and TNFR2 were associated with the composite outcome in the discovery sample (hazard ratio per SD increase, 1.13; 95% confidence interval, 1.05–1.22; P=0.001 for TNFR1; hazard ratio, 1.16; 95% confidence interval, 1.08–1.24; P<0.001 for TNFR2). The associations were similar in the replication sample. The associations with the composite outcome were mainly driven by acute myocardial infarction, cardiovascular mortality, and noncardiovascular mortality. The addition of TNFR1 and TNFR2 to established cardiovascular risk factors improved prediction only modestly (<1%). Conclusions Increased concentrations of circulating TNFR1 and TNFR2 were associated with increased risks of cardiovascular events and mortality in patients with stable coronary heart disease. Yet, the utility of measuring TNFR1 and TNFR2 to improve risk prediction in these patients appears limited. Clinical Trial Registration URL: https://www.clinicaltrials. gov. Unique identifier: NCT00121550.
Some Empirical Observations on the Forward Exchange Rate Anomaly

This paper looks at issues surrounding the testing of fractional integration and nonlinearity in relation to the forward exchange rate anomaly of Fama (1984). Recent tests for fractional integration and nonlinearity are discussed and used to investigate the behaviour of three exchange rates and premiums. The findings provide some support for I(1) exchange rates but suggest fractionality for premiums, mixed evidence on cointegration, and a strong possibility of time-wise nonlinearity. Significantly, when the nonlinearity is modelled using a random field regression, the forward anomaly disappears.
Foreign Direct Investment in India’s Retail Bazaar: Opportunities and Challenges

Despite encouraging signs, India’s retail market remains largely off‐limits to large international retailers like Wal‐Mart and Carrefour. Opposition to liberalising foreign direct investment in this sector raises concerns about employment losses, unfair competition resulting in large‐scale exit of incumbent domestic retailers and infant industry arguments to protect the organised domestic retail sector that is at a nascent stage. Based on international evidence, we suggest that allowing entry by large international retailers into the Indian market may help tackle inflation especially in food prices. Moreover, technical know‐how from foreign firms, such as warehousing technologies and distribution systems, can improve supply chain efficiency in India, in particular for agricultural produce. Better linkages between demand and supply have the potential to improve the price signals that farmers receive and also serve to enhance agricultural and other exports.
Symplectic maps

Here Dfij = ∂fi/∂zj is the Jacobian matrix of f , J is the Poisson matrix, and I is the n × n identity matrix. Equivalently, Stokes’ theorem can be used to show that the loop action, A[γ] = ∮ γ pdq, is preserved by f for any contractible loop γ on X. If f preserves the loop action for all loops, even those that are not contractible, then it is exact symplectic. When n = 1, the symplectic condition is equivalent to det(Df) = 1, so that the map is area– and orientation–preserving. Examples include the