Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dusting Off the Knowledge Shelves: Recombinant Lag and the Technological Value of Inventions

Whereas knowledge recombination research tends to focus on original knowledge component attributes and their recombinant value implications, we contribute to an emerging literature stream on knowledge reuse trajectories, investigating the temporal dimension of reuse by introducing the concept of recombinant lag, that is, the time that components have remained unused. Relying on organizational learning theory, we emphasize that it is important to consider not only the frequency of reuse but also the recency of reuse. Our core argument is that recent reuse of knowledge components can trigger a rejuvenation effect that influences the value of resulting inventions. Analyzing 21,117 fuel cell patent families, we find an unexpected U-shaped relationship between recombinant lag and the value of inventions, which is moderated by frequency of reuse. Conducting post hoc exploratory data analyses, we advance the concept of dormant components (i.e., valuable components that have remained unused prolongedly) as a potential explanation for this unexpected U-shaped pattern. Moreover, collecting and analyzing data on a second sample in the wind energy industry, we provide first indications for the generalizability of these unexpected findings. We contribute to a richer understanding of reuse trajectories, highlighting that next to the magnitude of reuse information flows, that is, information flows that are generated when components are reused, the timing of creation of these information flows shapes the value of subsequent recombination activities. We also contribute to extant research on the temporal dimension of knowledge recombination, pointing to recombinant lag as an important aspect next to component age.
Modelling Sex Ratio and Numbers for Translocation in Meta-Population Management

The management of endangered species as metapopulations is becoming increasingly common. Diverse aspects of metapopulation dynamics and management have received attention in recent years. In particular, translocation of individuals between subpopulations of a metapopulation is practiced, or envisaged, for a variety of reasons and requires careful consideration. Linklater (2003) proposed that the number of individuals of each sex translocated into a target population for the purposes of maintaining genetic diversity could be chosen on the basis of parental investment theory. In this paper, following basic ideas in the parental investment literature, I propose a simple model to capture Linklater's proposal and provide a thorough mathematical analysis of the model. Granted the necessary species-specific biological information which would determine the model parameters in any instance of application, the analysis indicates that a practical algorithm can be constructed to generate the model's predictions for the optimal translocation.
Effect of Orbital Decompression on Corneal Topography in Patients with Thyroid Ophthalmopathy

Objective To evaluate changes in corneal astigmatism in patients undergoing orbital decompression surgery. Methods This retrospective, non randomized comparative study involved 42 eyes from 21 patients with thyroid ophthalmopathy who underwent orbital decompression surgery between September 2011 and September 2014. The 42 eyes were divided into three groups: control (9 eyes), two-wall decompression (25 eyes), and three-wall decompression (8 eyes). The control group was defined as the contralateral eyes of nine patients who underwent orbital decompression surgery in only one eye. Corneal topography (Orbscan II), Hertel exophthalmometry, and intraocular pressure were measured at 1 month before and 3 months after surgery. Corneal topographic parameters analyzed were total astigmatism (TA), steepest axis (SA), central corneal thickness (CCT), and anterior chamber depth (ACD). Results Exophthalmometry values and intraocular pressure decreased significantly after the decompression surgery. The change (absolute value (|x|) of the difference) in astigmatism at the 3 mm zone was significantly different between the decompression group and the controls (p = 0.025). There was also a significant change in the steepest axis at the 3 mm zone between the decompression group and the controls (p = 0.033). An analysis of relevant changes in astigmatism showed that there was a dominant tendency for incyclotorsion of the steepest axis in eyes that underwent decompression surgery. Using Astig PLOT, the mean surgically induced astigmatism (SIA) was 0.21±0.88 D with an axis of 46±22°, suggesting that decompression surgery did change the corneal shape and induced incyclotorsion of the steepest axis. Conclusions There was a significant change in corneal astigmatism after orbital decompression surgery and this change was sufficient to affect the optical function of the cornea. Surgeons and patients should be aware of these changes.
Development of a rapid, quantitative method for LDL subfractionation with use of the Quantimetrix Lipoprint LDL System.

BACKGROUND Recent evidence suggests that the presence of small, dense LDL is independently associated with increased risk of developing coronary artery disease. Current methods to subfractionate LDL are time-consuming and/or technically demanding. Therefore, we have sought the development of a less complex LDL subfractionation procedure. METHODS LDL subfractions were separated using the Quantimetrix Lipoprint(TM) LDL System. High-resolution 3% polyacrylamide gel tubes were scanned densitometrically (610 nm) with a Helena EDC system. A computerized method to identify and quantitatively score the resolved LDL subfractions was developed. Results from the Quantimetrix method were compared using 51 plasma samples with values obtained by nondenaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (NDGGE) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. RESULTS LDL subfractionation scores correlated significantly (P <0.05) with triglyceride, HDL-cholesterol, apolipoprotein B100, and LDL-cholesterol/apolipoprotein B100 (r = 0.591, -0.392, 0.454, and -0.411, respectively). For 51 samples, the Quantimetrix method classified 21 with small, 14 with intermediate, and 16 with large LDL. Of the 21 samples classified as small by Quantimetrix, 20 (95%) were classified as small (n = 18) or intermediate (n = 2) by NDGGE. All of the 16 specimens classified as large by Quantimetrix were either large (n = 14) or intermediate (n = 2) by NDGGE. LDL score was inversely correlated (r = -0.674; P <0.0001) with LDL particle size determined by NMR spectroscopy. CONCLUSIONS A quantitative method for the assessment of LDL particle size phenotype was developed using the Quantimetrix Lipoprint LDL System. The method can be performed in less than 3 h in batch mode and is suitable for routine use in clinical laboratories.
Bilateral same day phacoemulsification: 220 cases retrospectively reviewed

Background/aims: The relative frequency, basic patient data, results, and complications of planned same day bilateral phacoemulsification were studied from April 1999 to May 2001 at the Department of Ophthalmology, Linköping University Hospital, Sweden. Methods: Retrospective study of patient records (n=220) regarding preoperative and postoperative visual acuity, applied indications, concurrent disease, preoperative, peroperative, and postoperative complications, and number of unplanned postoperative visits. The monthly rate of bilateral phacoemulsification to all cataract procedures was monitored. Results: Mean corrected preoperative visual acuity was 0.27 (worse eye) and 0.39 (better eye), and postoperatively (all eyes) 0.71. Visual acuity was 0.5 or better in 78% of eyes. Preoperative considerations included type of cataract, to avoid anisometropia, social circumstances, and concurrent eye disease. Reasons for unplanned postoperative visits included secondary cataract (n=10), iritis (n=6), corneal oedema (n=3), cortex in the anterior chamber (n=2), and unilateral endophthalmitis (n=2). During the study period, 10.5% of patients were operated upon bilaterally on the same day. Conclusions: Same day bilateral phacoemulsification was found to be a safe and cost effective way of rapidly rehabilitating selected cataract patients. The patient must be informed of the added potential risks as well as the benefits of the procedure.
O R I G I N a L a R T I C L E Open Access

Novel insights regarding the sigmoidal pattern of resistance to neomycin conferred by the aphII gene, in Streptomyces lividans Abstract A library of synthetic promoters of various strengths, specifically constructed for Streptomyces species, was cloned in the promoter-probe plasmid pIJ487, upstream of the promoter-less aphII gene that confers resistance to neomycin. The survival rates conferred by promoters were assessed in the presence of 100 μg. ml −1 neomycin. The correlation between the transcriptional activity of the aphII gene (estimated by RT-PCR) and the resistance to neomycin (expressed as survival rate) indicated a sigmoid rather than a linear correlation. In this issue, we propose a tentative explanation for this sigmoidal pattern of resistance in relation with the level of aphII gene expression. Beyond this specific example, our model might constitute a sound explanation for the generally observed but never explained sigmoidal shape of classical inhibition curves obtained in the presence of linearly increasing antibiotic concentrations.
Predictors of hospitalisations for heart failure and mortality in patients with pulmonary hypertension associated with left heart disease: a systematic review

Objectives Left heart disease (LHD) is the main cause of pulmonary hypertension (PH), but little is known regarding the predictors of adverse outcome of PH associated with LHD (PH-LHD). We conducted a systematic review to investigate the predictors of hospitalisations for heart failure and mortality in patients with PH-LHD. Design Systematic review. Data sources PubMed MEDLINE and SCOPUS from inception to August 2013 were searched, and citations identified via the ISI Web of Science. Study selection Studies that reported on hospitalisation and/or mortality in patients with PH-LHD were included if the age of participants was greater than 18 years and PH was diagnosed using Doppler echocardiography and/or right heart catheterisation. Two reviewers independently selected studies, assessed their quality and extracted relevant data. Results In all, 45 studies (38 from Europe and USA) were included among which 71.1% were of high quality. 39 studies were published between 2003 and 2013. The number of participants across studies ranged from 46 to 2385; the proportion of men from 21% to 91%; mean/median age from 63 to 82 years; and prevalence of PH from 7% to 83.3%. PH was consistently associated with increased mortality risk in all forms of LHD, except for aortic valve disease where findings were inconsistent. Six of the nine studies with data available on hospitalisations reported a significant adverse effect of PH on hospitalisation risk. Other predictors of adverse outcome were very broad and heterogeneous including right ventricular dysfunction, functional class, left ventricular function and presence of kidney disease. Conclusions PH is almost invariably associated with increased mortality risk in patients with LHD. However, effects on hospitalisation risk are yet to be fully characterised; while available evidence on the adverse effects of PH have been derived essentially from Caucasians.
Emotional Intelligence and Positive Organizational Leadership: A Conceptual Model for Positive Emotional Influence

While the relevance of emotional intelligence to leadership and management has been studied and written about for over a decade, most practical models of emotional intelligence still focus primarily on the personal management of negative emotions within the leader. While valuable, this approach delimits the utility of emotional intelligence in relational leadership. Furthermore, it does not take into consideration the significance of positive emotions in leadership. This article provides a review of the literature related to emotional intelligence, leadership, and positive psychology/leadership. It also presents an alternative model for engaging in emotionally intelligent leadership that focuses on the relational nature of emotion and the role of positive emotional influence.
Prediction of future hospital admissions - what is the tradeoff between specificity and accuracy?

Large amounts of electronic medical records collected by hospitals across the developed world offer unprecedented possibilities for knowledge discovery using computer based data mining and machine learning. Notwithstanding significant research efforts, the use of this data in the prediction of disease development has largely been disappointing. In this paper we examine in detail a recently proposed method which has in preliminary experiments demonstrated highly promising results on real-world data. We scrutinize the authors' claims that the proposed model is scalable and investigate whether the tradeoff between prediction specificity (i.e. the ability of the model to predict a wide number of different ailments) and accuracy (i.e. the ability of the model to make the correct prediction) is practically viable. Our experiments conducted on a data corpus of nearly 3,000,000 admissions support the authors' expectations and demonstrate that the high prediction accuracy is maintained well even when the number of admission types explicitly included in the model is increased to account for 98% of all admissions in the corpus. Thus several promising directions for future work are highlighted.
Separate Valuation Subsystems for Delay and Effort Decision Costs

Decision making consists of choosing among available options on the basis of a valuation of their potential costs and benefits. Most theoretical models of decision making in behavioral economics, psychology, and computer science propose that the desirability of outcomes expected from alternative options can be quantified by utility functions. These utility functions allow a decision maker to assign subjective values to each option under consideration by weighting the likely benefits and costs resulting from an action and to select the one with the highest subjective value. Here, we used model-based neuroimaging to test whether the human brain uses separate valuation systems for rewards (erotic stimuli) associated with different types of costs, namely, delay and effort. We show that humans devalue rewards associated with physical effort in a strikingly similar fashion to those they devalue that are associated with delays, and that a single computational model derived from economics theory can account for the behavior observed in both delay discounting and effort discounting. However, our neuroimaging data reveal that the human brain uses distinct valuation subsystems for different types of costs, reflecting in opposite fashion delayed reward and future energetic expenses. The ventral striatum and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex represent the increasing subjective value of delayed rewards, whereas a distinct network, composed of the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula, represent the decreasing value of the effortful option, coding the expected expense of energy. Together, these data demonstrate that the valuation processes underlying different types of costs can be fractionated at the cerebral level.
The Age Associations of Blood Pressure, Cholesterol, and Glucose: Analysis of Health Examination Surveys From International Populations

Background— The age association of cardiovascular disease may be in part because its metabolic risk factors tend to rise with age. Few studies have analyzed age associations of multiple metabolic risks in the same population, especially in nationally representative samples. We examined worldwide variations in the age associations of systolic blood pressure (SBP), total cholesterol (TC), and fasting plasma glucose (FPG). Methods and Results— We used individual records from 83 nationally or subnationally representative health examination surveys in 52 countries to fit a linear model to risk factor data between ages 30 and 64 years for SBP and FPG, and between 30 and 54 years for TC. We report the cross-country variation of the slope and intercept of this relationship. We also assessed nonlinear associations in older ages. Between 30 and 64 years of age, SBP increased by 1.7 to 11.6 mm Hg per 10 years of age, and FPG increased by 0.8 to 20.4 mg/dL per 10 years of age in different countries and in the 2 sexes. Between 30 and 54 years of age, TC increased by 0.2 to 22.4 mg/dL per 10 years of age in different surveys and in the 2 sexes. For all risk factors and in most countries, risk factor levels rose more steeply among women than among men, especially for TC. On average, there was a flattening of age-SBP relationship in older ages; TC and FPG age associations reversed in older ages, leading to lower levels in older ages than in middle ages. Conclusions— The rise with age of major metabolic cardiovascular disease risk factors varied substantially across populations, especially for FPG and TC. TC rose more steeply in high-income countries and FPG in the Oceania countries, the Middle East, and the United States. The SBP age association had no specific income or geographical pattern.
Growth of the corpus callosum in adolescents born preterm.

OBJECTIVE To examine the growth of the corpus callosum between adolescence and early adulthood in individuals who were born before 33 weeks' gestation (very preterm [VPT]) and its relation to neuropsychological function. DESIGN A longitudinal cohort study of VPT individuals born between January 4, 1982, and December 29, 1984, and a term-born comparison group. SETTING A long-term follow-up study into perinatal predictors of outcome after preterm birth at University College Hospital, London. PARTICIPANTS A total of 72 VPT and 34 term-born individuals were assessed in adolescence (aged 15 years) and in early adulthood (aged 19 years). Adult assessments took place between June 6, 2002, and October 23, 2004. MAIN EXPOSURE Birth before 33 weeks' gestation. OUTCOME MEASURE The cross-sectional area of 4 segments of the corpus callosum, measured on the midsagittal slice of high-resolution structural magnetic resonance images in adolescence and young adulthood. RESULTS Total corpus callosum size increased in term and VPT groups, but growth was much greater in the VPT group (13.4% in the VPT group vs 3.3% in the term group). There were significant associations between adult performance IQ and growth of anterior (P = .001), midposterior (P = .009), and posterior (P = .009) segments in the VPT group. CONCLUSIONS The corpus callosum grows dramatically in VPT adolescents, and this growth is associated with neuropsychological outcome. This may represent a delay of a normal maturational process in VPT individuals.
Serotonin produces long-term changes in the excitability of Aplysia sensory neurons in culture that depend on new protein synthesis

When isolated and grown in cell culture, the sensory and motor neurons of the gill withdrawal reflex of Aplysia readily form synaptic connections. Repeated exposures to 5-HT cause facilitation of the synaptic connections between co-cultured sensory and motor neurons lasting at least 24 hr. As a first step toward understanding the locus and the mechanisms underlying this long-term synaptic facilitation, we have examined the membrane excitability of the isolated presynaptic sensory neurons grown alone in dissociated cell culture. Four repeated applications of 1 microM 5-HT caused a significant increase in the excitability of sensory neurons, lasting at least 24 hr. This resembles the short-term changes in excitability seen in response to a single application of 5-HT. Unlike the short-term effect, this long-lasting change was blocked by exposure of the cells during the 5-HT treatment to 10 microM anisomycin, an inhibitor of protein synthesis. Thus, like the synaptic facilitation, the long-term change in excitability of the isolated presynaptic neurons differs from the short-term in requiring the synthesis of new protein. This finding suggests that the sensory neuron uses gene products to modulate membrane currents in its long- term response to repeated external stimuli that are not required in its short-term response to a single stimulus.
An Architecture for Monitoring and Recommending Active Databases DDLs

The integrated monitoring within heterogeneous database environments can become complex, due to the particularities in the language syntax and available tools. In particular, active databases allow developing mechanisms and automation of processes involving data or objects. This work proposes the development of an architecture to identify and monitor DDL, exploring the active databases and recommendations approach. This architecture could be explored in several ways: simple monitoring of DDL events in one or more databases, or recommendation of future DDLs or settings within the monitored database. In this context, this paper proposes: (i) an integrated architecture of active databases and recommendation; (ii) the adaptation of a recommendation algorithm, and (iii) the validation of concepts through a prototype.
Tubal ligation and risk of breast cancer

Although it has been demonstrated in previous studies that tubal ligation can have widespread effects on ovarian function, including a decrease in the risk of subsequent ovarian cancer, few studies have evaluated effects on breast cancer risk. In a population-based case–control study of breast cancer among women 20–54 years of age conducted in three geographic areas, previous tubal ligations were reported by 25.3% of the 2173 cases and 25.8% of the 1990 controls. Initially it appeared that tubal ligations might impart a slight reduction in risk, particularly among women undergoing the procedure at young ages (< 25 years). However, women were more likely to have had the procedure if they were black, less educated, young when they bore their first child, or multiparous. After accounting for these factors, tubal ligations were unrelated to breast cancer risk (relative risk (RR) = 1.09, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.9–1.3), with no variation in risk by age at, interval since, or calendar year of the procedure. The relationship of tubal ligations to risk did not vary according to the presence of a number of other risk factors, including menopausal status or screening history. Furthermore, effects of tubal ligation were similar for all stages at breast cancer diagnosis. Further studies would be worthwhile given the biologic plausibility of an association. However, future investigations should include information on type of procedure performed (since this may relate to biologic effects) as well as other breast cancer risk factors. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaign
Search Key Identification in a Spoken Query using Isolated Keyword Recognition

article presents a novel technique for the recognition of isolated keywords from spoken search queries. Recognition of the isolated keywords from spoken search queries may be considered as the first step towards the development of a speech-operated keyword-based searching technique. A database of 300 spoken search queries from Assamese language, a major Indian language mostly spoken by the people of north east India, has been created. The system developed during the study has been tested and evaluated with the above mentioned database. In the present study, Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) has been used as the feature vector and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) to identify the phoneme boundaries as well as for recognition of the phonemes. Viterbi search technique has been used to identify the keywords from the sequence of phonemes generated by the phoneme recognizer. A recognition accuracy of 74.67% has been achieved in the present study.