Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The influence of single bursts versus single spikes at excitatory dendrodendritic synapses

The synchronization of neuronal activity is thought to enhance information processing. There is much evidence supporting rhythmically bursting external tufted cells (ETCs) of the rodent olfactory bulb glomeruli coordinating the activation of glomerular interneurons and mitral cells via dendrodendritic excitation. However, as bursting has variable significance at axodendritic cortical synapses, it is not clear if ETC bursting imparts a specific functional advantage over the preliminary spike in dendrodendritic synaptic networks. To answer this question, we investigated the influence of single ETC bursts and spikes with the in vitro rat olfactory bulb preparation at different levels of processing, via calcium imaging of presynaptic ETC dendrites, dual electrical recording of ETC –interneuron synaptic pairs, and multicellular calcium imaging of ETC‐induced population activity. Our findings supported single ETC bursts, versus single spikes, driving robust presynaptic calcium signaling, which in turn was associated with profound extension of the initial monosynaptic spike‐driven dendrodendritic excitatory postsynaptic potential. This extension could be driven by either the spike‐dependent or spike‐independent components of the burst. At the population level, burst‐induced excitation was more widespread and reliable compared with single spikes. This further supports the ETC network, in part due to a functional advantage of bursting at excitatory dendrodendritic synapses, coordinating synchronous activity at behaviorally relevant frequencies related to odor processing in vivo.
Anti-inflammatory flavanol glycosides from Saraca asoca bark

Saraca asoca (Roxb.) de Wilde, a common tree of India, is popularly used in the Ayurvedic and modern herbal systems of medicine for genito-urinary problems of women. Considering the reported antimicrobial or anti-inflammatory effect of S. asoca bark against such infections, we studied the anti-inflammatory activity-guided isolation of active compounds from methanol extract. The methanol extract of bark has yielded 10 compounds out of which 3′-deoxyepicatechin-3-O-β-d-glucopyranoside (6) and 3′-deoxycatechin-3-O-α-l-rhamnopyranoside (8) have been found to be in vitro and in vivo active. 3′,5-Dimethoxy epicatechin (3), 3′-deoxyepicatechin-3-O-β-d-glucopyranoside (6), 3′-deoxycatechin-3-O-α-l-rhamnopyranoside (8) and epigallocatechin (9) are being reported for the first time from S. asoca.
Continuance usage intention and intention to recommend on information based mobile application: A technological and user experience perspective

The purpose of this research is to understand the antecedents of continuance usage intention and intention to recommend of information based mobile application. The underlying research model was developed from technological as well as user experience perspectives, intertwined with the expectation-confirmation model. A total of 176 respondents participated in this study, whom were avid users of a respected information based mobile application in Indonesia. Data was analyzed using Structural Equational Modeling, aided by WarpPLS 4.0. The results revealed a number of factors that influence intention to reuse and intention to recommend, which include system quality, information quality, perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment, confirmation, and satisfaction. Perceived usefulness and satisfaction were factors that directly affect continuance usage intention. Intention to recommend, on the other hand, was only directly influenced by satisfaction. Confirmation affected both user experience factors of perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment, as well as satisfaction. Finally, perceived usefulness was affected by information quality and perceived enjoyment was affected by system quality.
Open Strategy between Crowd and Community: Lessons from Wikimedia and Creative Commons

Based on a conception of strategy as a practice and theoretical arguments related to ‘open strategy’, this paper analyzes six cases of open strategy initiatives situated in two transnational non-profit organizations (Wikimedia and Creative Commons). With regard to openness, we look specifically at the inclusion of external actors in strategy-making. We differentiate between crowds, where external actors are isolated and dispersed, and communities, where related agents self-identify as members of the community. In all six cases, we identify the main strategic aims at stake, the scope of the open strategy tools utilized, the relevant reference groups, and the open strategy practices emerging from these setups. We thereby show how the open strategy initiatives exhibit different degrees of openness, where greater openness leads to a greater diversity of open strategy practices. Additionally, we evaluate the relation between the scope of different open strategy tools and the characteristics of the external ref.
Assessment and management of patients with chronic cough by Certified Respiratory Educators: a randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND The value of other health care professionals is increasingly being recognized to compensate for the shortage of physicians in Canada. Chronic cough is one of the most common reasons for consultation with a respirologist. In the present study, a prospective, randomized, controlled study was undertaken to determine whether Certified Respiratory Educators (CREs) could manage screened patients with chronic cough as effectively as respirologists. METHODS An eight-week, prospective, parallel-design, randomized, controlled trial of the management of chronic cough patients was conducted. Patients were screened to exclude those with potentially life-threatening conditions. The primary outcome was the number of patients whose cough resolved or subjectively improved. RESULTS A total of 198 patients were randomly assigned, and eight-week data were available on 151 patients. Mean age of the patients was 49.8+/-13.4 years, 70.2% were female and median cough duration was 16 months. The screening process was effective and referral wait times decreased from a median of two months to less than four weeks (P<0.0001). The educators averaged 4.9 contacts per patient compared with 2.7 by the physicians over the eight-week study period (P<0.0001). Most patients had had multiple therapeutic trials before referral. Cough resolved or improved in two-thirds of the patients at eight weeks; however, more patients showed improvement in the educator arm than in the physician arm, P<0.02. Cough-specific quality of life improved similarly in the two study arms at eight weeks (physician arm: 61.5+/-14.1 to 52.6+/-14.4, P<0.0001; CRE arm: 58.1+/-14.9 to 50.0+/-15.8, P=0.0003). CONCLUSIONS CREs can safely and effectively assess, as well as appropriately treat, screened patients with chronic cough with a resultant reduction in wait times.
The value of real-time continuous glucose monitoring in premature infants of diabetic mothers

To determine the feasibility of using a real-time continuous glucose monitoring system (RTGMS) in intensive care units, our study focus on preterm infants with diabetic mothers owing to their high risk of blood sugar abnormalities. Thirty preterm babies (M = 15 and F = 15; ≤ 36 week gestation age) were studied from within 72 hours of delivery. These babies were admitted to the newborn intensive care and were further categorized into groups based on whether their mothers with or without diabetic mellitus. Blood sugar levels were monitored by both RTGMS and the traditional intermittent arterial line (A-Line) glucose method. Continuous glucose monitoring were well tolerated in 30 infants. There were good consistency between RTGMS and A-Line glucose concentration measurements. Of the preterm infants, 33.33% experienced abnormal glucose levels (hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia) between the checkpoint intervals of the intermittent A-Line blood sugar measurements. RTGM showed advantages with regards to reduced pain, greater comfort, the provision of real-time information, high sensitivity (94.59%) and specificity (97.87%) in discovering abnormalities of blood sugar, which are especially valuable for premature infants of diabetic mothers. RTGMS is comparable to A-line measurement for identifying fluctuations in blood glucose in premature infants. RTGMS detects more episodes of abnormal glucose concentration than intermittent A-line blood glucose measurement. High risk infants, especially premature infants with diabetic mothers, should receive more intensive blood sugar level checks by using continuous RTGMS.
Autoantibodies and hepatitis C virus genotypes in chronic hepatitis C patients in Estonia.

AIM To determine the prevalence of several autoantibodies in chronic hepatitis C patients, and to find out whether the pattern of autoantibodies was associated with hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotypes. METHODS Sera from 90 consecutive patients with chronic hepatitis C were investigated on the presence of anti-nuclear (ANA), anti-mitochondrial (AMA), anti-smooth muscle (SMA), anti-liver-kidney microsomal type 1 (LKMA1), anti-parietal cell (PCA), anti-thyroid microsomal (TMA), and anti-reticulin (ARA) autoantibodies. The autoantibodies were identified by indirect immunofluorescence. HCV genotypes were determined by a restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of the amplified 5' noncoding genome region. RESULTS Forty-six (51.1%) patients were positive for at least one autoantibody. Various antibodies were presented as follows: ANA in 13 (14.4%) patients, SMA in 39 (43.3%), TMA in 2 (2.2%), and ARA in 1 (1.1%) patients. In 9 cases, sera were positive for two autoantibodies (ANA and SMA). AMA, PCA and LKMA1 were not detected in the observed sera. HCV genotypes were distributed as follows: 1b in 66 (73.3%) patients, 3a in 18 (20.0%), and 2a in 6 (6.7%) patients. CONCLUSION A high prevalence of ANA and SMA can be found in chronic hepatitis C patients. Autoantibodies are present at low titre (1:10) in most of the cases. Distribution of the autoantibodies show no differences in the sex groups and between patients infected with different HCV genotypes.
The Balanced Scorecard: Judgmental Effects of Common and Unique Performance Measures

The balanced scorecard is a new tool that complements traditional measures of business unit performance. The scorecard contains a diverse set of performance measures, including financial performance, customer relations, internal business processes, and learning and growth. Advocates of the balanced scorecard suggest that each unit in the organization should develop and use its own scorecard, choosing measures that capture the unit's business strategy. Our study examines judgmental effects of the balanced scorecard—specifically, how balanced scorecards that include some measures common to multiple units and other measures that are unique to a particular unit affect superiors' evaluations of that unit's performance. Our test shows that only the common measures affect the superiors' evaluations. We discuss the implications of this result for research and practice.
Privatization and Utility Regulation in Developing Countries: the Lessons So Far

The privatization of utilities has grown in developing countries in recent years. Privatization transactions for the utilities sector have accounted for over a third of all sales in developing countries since 1988. The introduction of privatization has not necessarily meant more competition. Consequently, utility privatization has led in many cases to the creation of regulatory structures that aim to protect consumers from monopoly abuse and to provide incentives to firms to maintain efficiency. Case studies drawing on examples from the telecommunications, electricity and water sectors indicate that creating effective regulation and a competitive environment is a difficult and slow process. The cases have shown that regulation rather than privatization achieved the largest gains. Similarly, although the variety of regulatory measures that have been introduced have made a difference, the most tangible benefits, particularly to consumers, result from the establishment of competition. The case studies have shown that privatization has preceded the development of effective regulation and competition. The development of regulatory structures is constrained by the capacity of governments to enforce regulatory rules and monitor contracts. Fostering conditions that encourage competition and lessen anti-competitive behaviour by incumbents is a beneficial but slow process.
Assessing students' rating in higher education: A SERVQUAL approach

The paper addresses two common questions relating to the use of students' feedback reports as valid measures of teaching effectiveness and improvement of teaching quality. A SERVQUAL-type approach to prioritise quality parameters has also been adopted. The role of statistics and quality professionals has been elaborated. Scope for further research about rating instruments and other forms of students' input has been recommended.
Encouraging CRM systems usage: a study among bank managers

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to seek to understand service providers and their intentions to use their organization's customer relationship management (CRM) technology. The paper identifies perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use as key elements that are critical in encouraging service providers' intention to use CRM systems.Design/methodology/approach – The research is grounded in the theory of reasoned action and the technology acceptance model. These are used as a basis for developing hypotheses of the relationships between the variables pertaining to the intention to use CRM systems, among a sample of service providers. Data are collected from a sample of managers in a community bank.Findings – Results indicate that the higher the perceived ease of use, the greater the perceived usefulness and the higher the intention to use CRM. Moreover, perceived usefulness is also found to act as a partial mediator between perceived ease of use and intention to use CRM.Research limitations/implica.
Risk Preferences, Investor Sentiment and Lottery Stocks: A Stochastic Dominance Approach

Lottery stocks are a puzzle: individual investors value these stocks highly despite their low average returns and high volatility (Kumar [2009]). I argue that individuals are attracted to lottery stocks because they are risk-seeking and sentiment-prone. Because risk preferences are not directly observable, I use a model-free approach based on stochastic dominance to infer aggregate risk preferences. I also use a direct measure of individual investor sentiment, the bull-bear spread, to test whether sentiment affects the returns of lottery stocks. My results show that lottery stock investors are indeed risk seekers. Sentiment also plays an important role in explaining the demand and returns of lottery versus nonlottery stocks. The lottery stock puzzle can thus be understood only by incorporating unusual risk preferences and the propensity for individual investors to trade on sentiment.
Delay-tolerant space-time codes: An overview

In basic cooperative diversity systems, diversity is implemented by providing multiple routes through a network of single-antenna nodes. A potentially powerful cooperative strategy is to apply space-time codes (STCs) in a distributed fashion to the above virtual antenna array. However, owing to the nodes arbitrary geographical locations and individual oscillators, the system is fundamentally asynchronous. This will damage some of the key properties of the STCs and can lead to substantial performance degradation. The delay-tolerant STC is one efficient way to overcome such a problem. This paper presents an overview of delay-tolerant property and recent research efforts on design of delay-tolerant STCs. The design can be carried out by different criteria such as full-diversity order, minimum error probability, minimum mean square error etc. In addition, the feedback information can be utilized to further improve the performance of delay-tolerant STCs.
Influence of gender, BMI and body shape on theoretical injection outcome at the ventrogluteal and dorsogluteal sites

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES This study aimed to determine the influences of gender, BMI and observed body shape on subcutaneous fat and muscle thicknesses, and theoretical injection outcome, at the ventrogluteal and dorsogluteal intramuscular injection sites. BACKGROUND Debate continues as to whether the dorsogluteal or ventrogluteal injection site is more reliable for a successful intramuscular injection outcome. Subcutaneous fat and muscle thicknesses at the injection site are direct determinants of intramuscular injection outcome. BMI and observed body shape influence gluteal subcutaneous fat and muscle thicknesses, and therefore injection outcome, with potentially distinct effects at the ventrogluteal and dorsogluteal sites. DESIGN This was a cross-sectional study. METHODS Demographic data were collected, and subcutaneous fat and muscle thicknesses were quantified bilaterally at the dorsogluteal and ventrogluteal injection sites using ultrasound, for 145 participants (57% female). RESULTS Subcutaneous fat and muscle were significantly thicker at the dorsogluteal than the ventrogluteal site, and 75% and 86% of participants would receive a successful intramuscular injection at these sites, respectively. There were significant effects of gender, BMI and observed body shape on subcutaneous fat thickness and theoretical injection outcome at both sites. Females, obese individuals and endomorph individuals had thicker subcutaneous fat and were more likely to have a subcutaneous injection outcome. CONCLUSIONS Gender, BMI and observed body shape could be used to guide site and needle length selection when administering gluteal intramuscular injections to increase the likelihood of a successful intramuscular injection outcome. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE Both gluteal injection sites should be avoided in obese individuals and endomorph individuals. An intramuscular injection will be successful: using a 32-mm needle at the ventrogluteal site for all males and normal-weight females and using a 38-mm needle for all females at the ventrogluteal site, and for all males and at least 98% of females at the dorsogluteal site.
Pretreatment evaluation of fluorescence resonance energy transfer‐based drug sensitivity test for patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia treated with dasatinib

Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) are used for primary therapy in patients with newly diagnosed CML. However, a reliable method for optimal selection of a TKI from the viewpoint of drug sensitivity of CML cells has not been established. We have developed a FRET‐based drug sensitivity test in which a CrkL‐derived fluorescent biosensor efficiently quantifies the kinase activity of BCR‐ABL of living cells and sensitively evaluates the inhibitory activity of a TKI against BCR‐ABL. Here, we validated the utility of the FRET‐based drug sensitivity test carried out at diagnosis for predicting the molecular efficacy. Sixty‐two patients with newly diagnosed chronic phase CML were enrolled in this study and treated with dasatinib. Bone marrow cells at diagnosis were subjected to FRET analysis. The ΔFRET value was calculated by subtraction of FRET efficiency in the presence of dasatinib from that in the absence of dasatinib. Treatment response was evaluated every 3 months by the BCR‐ABL1 International Scale. Based on the ΔFRET value and molecular response, a threshold of the ΔFRET value in the top 10% of FRET efficiency was set to 0.31. Patients with ΔFRET value ≥0.31 had significantly superior molecular responses (MMR at 6 and 9 months and both MR4 and MR4.5 at 6, 9, and 12 months) compared with the responses in patients with ΔFRET value <0.31. These results suggest that the FRET‐based drug sensitivity test at diagnosis can predict early and deep molecular responses. This study is registered with UMIN Clinical Trials Registry (UMIN000006358).
Ethical considerations on the value of patient knowledge in long-term care

Aim: This study explores experiences of patients suffering from Korsakoff’s syndrome. It contributes to improved reflection on the value of patient knowledge. Background: An ethics of care perspective states the importance of moving to patients in their vulnerable state of being, and to figure out patients’ individual needs necessary to provide good care. The information given by patients suffering from Korsakoff’s syndrome might be mistaken, invented and even not true. The value of these patients’ experiences and knowledge had not been researched to date. Method: Data from six in-depth interviews were analysed concurrently through the constant comparative method. Ethical considerations: The principles of voluntariness, confidentiality and anonymity were respected during the research process. Findings: Four important themes within patients’ knowledge emerged: health condition, involuntary admission into the nursing home, the daily routine and interpretation of the caring abilities of healthcare professionals. The findings show that our respondents were able to provide a window into their inner perspective. Conclusion: This study deepens our understanding of the value of patient knowledge in situations where patients see the world in a different manner as do healthcare professionals. The conversations revealed personal subjective knowledge which our respondents create and live by. Healthcare professionals are encouraged to discover and affirm the understandings of these patients, and not be prepossessed due to the diagnosis or general nursing home rules. Understanding patients’ unique knowledge through appreciation of the complexity and richness of different views on the situation can assist to give a more humane response to individual needs and pain. Health staff in healthcare institutions are encouraged to evaluate the – unintended – effect of rigidly applied nursing home rules, and the government is challenged to rethink its policy about care, and provide more resources permitting relational care that nurtures the dignity of patients suffering from Korsakoff’s syndrome.
Explaining the Uneven Economic Performance of the EU Cohesion Countries: An Export-Led Growth Approach

This article explains the differences in growth rates between the cohesion countries of the EU: Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece. Employing a decomposition growth approach, it is found that the main driver of growth differences lies in productivity. The remarkably higher Irish growth rates in the 1990s are sourced to greater productivity growth resulting from higher investment in human capital and technology. The export-led growth approach reasonably predicts the growth rates and the prediction is more precise when differences in productivity growth are controlled for. Higher economic growth is explained by the higher income elasticity of exports relative to imports.
Applications of Eigenfunction Expansions in Continuous‐Time Finance

We provide exact solutions for two closely related valuation problems in continuous‐time finance. The first problem is to value generalized European‐style options on stocks that pay dividends at a constant dollar rate. The second problem is to find the yield curve associated with the economy of R. C. Merton's “An Asymptotic Theory of Growth Under Uncertainty. ” In Merton's economic growth model, the interest rate process has a volatility linear in the rate level and a linear/quadratic drift. Both problems are solved by an eigenfunction expansion technique. The main technical difficulty is handling the problem of payoff functions that are not square‐integrable with respect to the natural weight function of the models.