Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Blood Transfusion Delay and Outcome in County Hospitals in Kenya

Severe anemia is a leading indication for blood transfusion and a major cause of hospital admission and mortality in African children. Failure to initiate blood transfusion rapidly enough contributes to anemia deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. This article examines delays in accessing blood and outcomes in transfused children in Kenyan hospitals. Children admitted with nonsurgical conditions in 10 Kenyan county hospitals participating in the Clinical Information Network who had blood transfusion ordered from September 2013 to March 2016 were studied. The delay in blood transfusion was calculated from the date when blood transfusion was prescribed to date of actual transfusion. Five percent (2,875/53,174) of admissions had blood transfusion ordered. Approximately half (45%, 1,295/2,875) of children who had blood transfusion ordered at admission had a documented hemoglobin < 5 g/dl and 36% (2,232/6,198) of all children admitted with a diagnosis of anemia were reported to have hemoglobin < 5 g/dL. Of all the ordered transfusions, 82% were administered and documented in clinical records, and three-quarters of these (75%, 1,760/2,352) were given on the same day as ordered but these proportions varied from 71% to 100% across the 10 hospitals. Children who had a transfusion ordered but did not receive the prescribed transfusion had a mortality of 20%, compared with 12% among those transfused. Malaria-associated anemia remains the leading indication for blood transfusion in acute childhood illness admissions. Delays in transfusion are common and associated with poor outcomes. Variance in delay across hospitals may be a useful indicator of health system performance.
An analysis of the relationship between dividend payment and corporate performance of Nigerian banks

This paper analyzes the extent of relationships between dividend payment and corporate performance in the Nigerian banking industry. This is sequel to the fact that the determinants of the dividend policy have received little attention in developing countries such as Nigeria. The study uses a panel data set of banks listed on the Nigeria stock exchange between the year 1990 and 2010. The study developed five research hypotheses, which were applied to examine the extent and the level of significance of the relationship between the amount of dividend payment and corporate performance using regression models. The models considered the impact of free cash flows, current profitability, financial leverage, business risk and tax paid on dividend payment ratio. The research indicates that there is no significant relationship between dividend payout of banks in Nigeria and the explanatory variables. This result taken as a whole indicates that banks pay dividend in Nigeria with the intention of reducing the agency conflict and maintaining firms’ reputation. Furthermore, the Nigerian banks apportion more earning to the retention to boost growth of the banks when experiencing surplus earning. It was recommended that consistent policies and stable economic environment should be maintained to encourage surplus earning and high dividend payment ratios to shareholders in Nigeria.
Non-coding RNAs in Exosomes: New Players in Cancer Biology

Exosomes are lipid bilayer extracellular vesicles (EVs) of 50-150nm in size, which contain nucleic acids (mRNA, ncRNAs and DNA), proteins and lipids. They are secreted by all cells and circulate in all body fluids. Exosomes are key mediators of several processes in cancer that mediate tumor progression and metastasis. These nano-vesicles, when secreted from cancer cells, are enriched in non-coding RNAs (e.g. microRNAs) complexed with the RNA-Induced Silencing Complex (RISC), that mediate an efficient and rapid silencing of mRNAs at the recipient cell, reprogramming their transcriptome. MicroRNAs in circulation encapsulated in exosomes are protected from degradation by a lipid bilayer and might serve as potential non-invasive diagnostic and screening tools to detect early stage cancer, to facilitate treatment options and possible help in curative surgical therapy decisions. Additionally, engineered exosomes can be used as therapy vehicles for targeted delivery of RNAi molecules, escaping the immune system detection.
An Early Feeding Practices Intervention for Obesity Prevention

OBJECTIVE: Report long-term outcomes of the NOURISH randomized controlled trial (RCT), which evaluated a universal intervention commencing in infancy to provide anticipatory guidance to first-time mothers on “protective” complementary feeding practices that were hypothesized to reduce childhood obesity risk. METHODS: The NOURISH RCT enrolled 698 mothers (mean age 30.1 years, SD = 5.3) with healthy term infants (51% female). Mothers were randomly allocated to usual care or to attend two 6-session, 12-week group education modules. Outcomes were assessed 5 times: baseline (infants 4.3 months); 6 months after module 1 (infants 14 months); 6 months after module 2 (infants 2 years) and at 3.5 and 5 years of age. Maternal feeding practices were self-reported using validated questionnaires. BMI Z-score was calculated from measured child height and weight. Linear mixed models evaluated intervention (group) effect across time. RESULTS: Retention at age 5 years was 61%. Across ages 2 to 5 years, intervention mothers reported less frequent use of nonresponsive feeding practices on 6 of 9 scales. At 5 years, they also reported more appropriate responses to food refusal on 7 of 12 items (Ps ≤ .05). No statistically significant group effect was noted for anthropometric outcomes (BMI Z-score: P = .06) or the prevalence of overweight/obesity (control 13.3% vs intervention 11.4%, P = .66). CONCLUSIONS: Anticipatory guidance on complementary feeding resulted in first-time mothers reporting increased use of protective feeding practices. These intervention effects were sustained up to 5 years of age and were paralleled by a nonsignificant trend for lower child BMI Z-scores at all postintervention assessment points.
Usage and Distribution for Commercial Purposes Requires Written Permission. Intra-arterial Mechanical Thrombectomy: an Effective Treatment for Ischemic Stroke Caused by Endocarditis

Keywords Infective endocarditis · Ischemic stroke · Middle cerebral artery occlusion · Intra-arterial mechanical thrombectomy Abstract Patients with stroke secondary to infectious endocarditis have a high in-hospital morbidity and mortality, with only one-third becoming functionally independent. Infective endocarditis is usually considered a relative contraindication to thrombolytic therapy. We describe 3 consecutive cases of acute middle cerebral artery occlusion due to infective endocarditis, who were all successfully treated with intra-arterial mechanical thrombectomy using the Solitaire device. From this limited experience, mechanical thrombectomy could be used as an effective acute treatment for ischemic stroke in patients with infective endocarditis. Mechanical thrombectomy is most likely a more effective and safer treatment than intravenous thrombo-lysis in this patient group.
The New Psychology of Leadership: Identity, Influence and Power

According to John Adair, the most important word in the leader's vocabulary is "we" and the least important word is "I". But if this is true, it raises one important question: why do psychological analyses of leadership always focus on the leader as an individual - as the great "I"? One answer is that theorists and practitioners have never properly understood the psychology of "we-ness". This book fills this gap by presenting a new psychology of leadership that is the result of two decades of research inspired by social identity and self-categorization theories. The book argues that to succeed, leaders need to create, champion, and embed a group identity in order to cultivate an understanding of 'us' of which they themselves are representative. It also shows how, by doing this, they can make a material difference to the groups, organizations, and societies that they lead. Written in an accessible and engaging style, the book examines a range of central theoretical and practical issues, including the nature of group identity, the basis of authority and legitimacy, the dynamics of justice and fairness, the determinants of followership and charisma, and the practice and politics of leadership. The book will appeal to academics, practitioners and students in social and organizational psychology, sociology, political science and anyone interested in leadership, influence and power.
The Dynamic Relationship Between the Dollar and Components of U.S. Trade

The dynamic response of the nominal trade account to changes in the value of the U.S. dollar has been posited to follow a J-curve pattern. Recent experience calls this into question. The aggregate nominal trade balance is decomposed here into four components, both prices and volumes of imports and exports. Time series specification tests and Granger tests of causal priority are employed to identify the existence and nature of the response of each individual component to dollar movements. Surprisingly weak and delayed responses of both import prices and volumes are found, suggesting a new view of trade-balance evolution.
Osteoid Osteoma Treated with Radiofrequency Ablation

Purpose. Our aim is to evaluate the results of treatment with computed tomography (CT) guided percutaneous radiofrequency ablation for osteoid osteomas which were localized in a difficult area for operation. Materials and Methods. Glenoid, distal tibia, humerus shaft, proximal humerus, and in third finger of the hand proximal phalanx were involved in one patient. Proximal femur was involved in three patients, distal femur was involved in three patients, and proximal tibia was involved in two patients. 9 males and 4 females were aged 4 to 34 years (mean age: 18.5 years). All patients had pain and were evaluated with X-rays, CT, bone scintigraphy, and MRI. In all patients, RF ablation was performed with local anesthesia. The lesion heated to 90°C for 6 minutes. Results. All of the patients achieved complete pain relief after ablation and were fully weight bearing without any support. In all patients, there was soft tissue edema after the procedure. During follow-up, all patients were free from the pain and there was no sign about the tumor. There was no other complication after the process. Conclusion. CT guided RFA is a minimally invasive, safe, and cost-effective treatment for osteoid osteoma placed in difficult area for surgery.
Breast Cancer Cell Apoptosis with Phytoestrogens Is Dependent on an Estrogen-Deprived State

Phytoestrogens have been investigated as natural alternatives to hormone replacement therapy and their potential as chemopreventive agents. We investigated the effects of equol, genistein, and coumestrol on cell growth in fully estrogenized MCF7 cells, simulating the perimenopausal state, and long-term estrogen-deprived MCF7:5C cells, which simulate the postmenopausal state of a woman after years of estrogen deprivation, and compared the effects with that of steroidal estrogens: 17β estradiol (E2) and equilin present in conjugated equine estrogen. Steroidal and phytoestrogens induce proliferation of MCF7 cells at physiologic concentrations but inhibit the growth and induce apoptosis of MCF7:5C cells. Although steroidal and phytoestrogens induce estrogen-responsive genes, their antiproliferative and apoptotic effects are mediated through the estrogen receptor. Knockdown of ERα using siRNA blocks all estrogen-induced apoptosis and growth inhibition. Phytoestrogens induce endoplasmic reticulum stress and inflammatory response stress–related genes in a comparable manner as the steroidal estrogens. Inhibition of inflammation using dexamethasone blocked both steroidal- and phytoestrogen-induced apoptosis and growth inhibition as well as their ability to induce apoptotic genes. Together, this suggests that phytoestrogens can potentially be used as chemopreventive agents in older postmenopausal women but caution should be exercised when used in conjunction with steroidal anti-inflammatory agents due to their antiapoptotic effects. Cancer Prev Res; 7(9); 939–49. ©2014 AACR.
Modified Hidden Factor Analysis for Cross-Age Face Recognition

Cross-age face recognition has remained a popular research topic because the sophisticated facial change across age disables regular face recognition systems. Widely applied in age-related tasks, the hidden factor analysis (HFA) model decomposes face feature into independent age and identity factors. However, the hypothesis that the identity and age factors are independent is not in accordance with the fact that aging has different appearance changes on different people's faces. To address this problem, this letter presents a novel method for cross-age face recognition, called age-identity modified HFA, which exploits a new latent factor modeled as a linear combination with the age factor and the identity factor. Hence, the cross-age identity information can be extracted and separated preferably. A maximum likelihood strategy is proposed to judge which gallery face has the same identity with the probe image, while we do not need to know what the probe identity is. Extensive experiments are performed on the benchmark aging datasets MORPH and FG-Net, and the recognition rate of our method outperforms HFA by 10.4% and 1.15%, respectively.
Cross-National Comparisons of Earnings and Income Inequality

This article reviews the evidence on cross-national comparisons of earnings and income inequality in OECD countries. It begins with a series of stylized facts which are then examined and supported by recent studies in the field. Economic, demographic, institutional and policy-related influences on earnings and income distribution are reviewed. The paper concludes with a call for more work on empirically testable structural models of household income distribution.
A Comparison of Nested PCR Assay with Conventional Techniques for Diagnosis of Intestinal Cryptosporidiosis in AIDS Cases from Northern India

Cryptosporidiosis is a very important opportunistic infection and is responsible for significant morbidity and mortality in HIV/AIDS patients. Although current laboratory methods are generally considered adequate to detect high concentrations of oocysts, they fail to detect cases of cryptosporidiosis in many immunocompromised patients. The present study was done to determine the diagnostic efficacy of modified Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN), antigen detection ELISA, and a nested PCR assay for detection of Cryptosporidium in 58 adult AIDS cases with diarrhea from the ART clinic of Lok Nayak Hospital, New Delhi. Cryptosporidium was detected in 17 (29.4%), 39 (67.3%), and 45 (77.5%) cases by modified ZN staining, antigen ELISA, and nested PCR assay, respectively. Taking nested PCR as the gold standard, specificity of both modified ZN staining and Cryptosporidium antigen detection ELISA was 100% while the sensitivity of the tests was 37.8% and 86.6%, respectively. PCR was more sensitive than the other two diagnostic modalities but required a more hands-on time per sample and was more expensive than microscopy. PCR, however, was very adaptable to batch analysis, reducing the costs considerably. This assay can therefore have considerable advantages in the treatment of immunosuppressed individuals like AIDS patients, allowing their early diagnosis and decreasing the morbidity and the mortality.
Online Groups and Political Discourse: Do Online Discussion Spaces Facilitate Exposure to Political Disagreement?

To what extent do online discussion spaces expose participants to political talk and to cross-cutting political views in particular? Drawing on a representative national sample of over 1000 Americans reporting participation in chat rooms or message boards, we examine the types of online discussion spaces that create opportunities for cross-cutting political exchanges. Our findings suggest that the potential for deliberation occurs primarily in online groups where politics comes up only incidentally, but is not the central purpose of the discussion space. We discuss the implications of our findings for the contributions of the Internet to cross-cutting political discourse.
The Demand for Products Linked to Public Goods: Evidence from an Online Field Experiment

We conduct a field experiment at a nonprofit organization's online store to study how demand changes when consumers' purchases can generate revenue for a charitable cause. When purchases can trigger a small donation by an outside anonymous group, consumers respond strongly and apparently without regard for the specific conditions that trigger the donation. Consumers respond similarly when the outside donation requires a personal donation which consumers generally decline. When the outside donations are relatively large, however, consumers appear to pay close attention to the trigger conditions, and increase their purchases only where needed to generate the outside donation. Overall, increasing the salience of financial incentives weakens consumers' positive responses to the outside group's donation pledges. We also present evidence that the donation pledges have positive long-term effects on demand and may reduce price sensitivity.
Ruminal methane inhibition potential of various pure compounds in comparison with garlic oil as determined with a rumen simulation technique (Rusitec)

Ruminants represent an important source of methane (CH4) emissions; therefore, CH4 mitigation by diet supplementation is a major goal in the current ruminant research. The objective of the present study was to use a rumen simulation technique to evaluate the CH4-mitigating potential of pure compounds in comparison with that achieved with garlic oil, a known anti-methanogenic supplement. A basal diet (15 g DM/d) consisting of ryegrass hay, barley and soyabean meal (1:0·7:0·3) was incubated with the following additives: none (negative control); garlic oil (300 mg/l incubation liquid; positive control); allyl isothiocyanate (75 mg/l); lovastatin (150 mg/l); chenodeoxycholic acid (150 mg/l); 3-azido-propionic acid ethyl ester (APEE, 150 mg/l); levulinic acid (300 mg/l); 4-[(pyridin-2-ylmethyl)-amino]-benzoic acid (PABA, 300 mg/l). Fermentation profiles (SCFA, microbial counts and N turnover) and H2 and CH4 formation were determined. Garlic oil, allyl isothiocyanate, lovastatin and the synthetic compound APEE decreased the absolute daily CH4 formation by 91, 59, 42 and 98 %, respectively. The corresponding declines in CH4 emitted per mmol of SCFA were 87, 32, 40 and 99 %, respectively, compared with the negative control; the total SCFA concentration was unaffected. Garlic oil decreased protozoal numbers and increased bacterial counts, while chenodeoxycholic acid completely defaunated the incubation liquid. In vitro, neutral-detergent fibre disappearance was lower following chenodeoxycholic acid and PABA treatments ( − 26 and − 18 %, respectively). In conclusion, garlic oil and APEE were extremely efficient at mitigating CH4 without noticeably impairing microbial nutrient fermentation. Other promising substances were allyl isothiocyanate and lovastatin.
Predicting Behavior in Games

My thesis contains four articles. Each article investigates the predictive accuracy of one or more behavioral game theory models for different games. Section 2 is based on a joint publication with Johannes Leder and Kinneret Teodorescu (Hariskos et al., 2011). The article is on learning models for predicting decisions from experience in forty market entry games.In Section 3 I investigate and extend the predictions of the social preference model of Fehr and Schmidt (1999) for the public goods game.Section 4 is joint work with Konstantinos Katsikopoulos and Gerd Gigerenzer. The article is on bargaining models for predicting decisions in one-shot ultimatum bargaining games.The main results of our study are that (1) the heuristic mix fits the outcomes observed in the ultimatum bargaining experiment no worse than the inequality aversion models and that(2) the heuristic mix makes better out-of-sample predictions for the three-person ultimatum game. Section 5 is based on joint work with Robert Bohm, Pantelis Pipergias Analytis and Konstantinos Katsikopoulos. The article is on equilibrium models and strategy mix models for predicting behavior in a broad set of one hundred and twenty extensive form games. In our article we investigate four research questions: (1) Is it possible to achieve better fitting and prediction results by specifying and estimating different equilibrium models that were used by Ert et al. (2011)? Our results show that the gap between the seven strategies model and the equilibrium models in fitting the data of the estimation experiment is smaller than expected; however the seven strategies model still predicts the data of the prediction experiment better. (2) How good are the predictions of our submitted models in comparison to the baseline models? Our results show that our second mover models predict the choice behavior in the prediction set of games better than each baseline model and that our first mover models are only outperformed by the seven strategies model. (3) How reliable are the predictions results of the competition? We check how reliable the prediction results of the competition are by comparing them to predictions results of two different cross validations. Our results show that the ranking of the models may change in the cross validations if the prediction results in the competition are close and that only groups of models with similar results that differ considerably between groups do not change ranks. (4) How can we achieve better predictions by combining predictions of different models? Our results show that simple averaging of predictions of good models yields better predictions than each individual model and that optimal predictions are only obtained if predictions of semi-good models that are not highlycorrelated to the predictions of the good models are included.
Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics

PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionThe Political Economy of CultureReligion and Politics in the EverydayThe Institutional Expression of IslamGeneration X and the Virtue PartyPopulism: Democracy is Peace of MindCivil Society: In Whose Service? Islamist Elitism and Women's ChoicesSecular Activism in UmraniyeConclusionPostscriptNotesBibliographyIndex
An integrated framework for measuring information system success considering the impact of culture in Indonesia

This paper aims to propose a framework for assessing information system (IS) success considering the impact of culture. Previous frameworks for assessing information system (IS) success, such as DeLone and McLean model, only concern about the status of IS implementation itself. But none of the models have included the dimensions for assessing culture even though researchers have shown the strong relationship between culture and the success (or failure) of the IS. The inclusion of culture in the IS success model is very important, especially in Indonesia, since culture plays as a dominant part in almost all aspects of citizen's lives. This paper is expected to make a contribution on providing a framework for assessing IS success considering the impact of culture. To validate the proposed model, a mixed-method research design is proposed.