Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quality of Life, Cortisol Blood Levels and Exercise in Older Adults: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial

Introduction: Cortisol plays a central role in the stress response; while high stress can determine physical and psychological impairment, moderate stress, with a mild increase in cortisol level, may have a positive effect on coping and physical performance. This trial attempted to determine whether cortisol levels were associated with Quality of Life (QoL) in a sample of elderly subjects undertaking an exercise program. Methods:42 subjects aged ≥65 years were randomlyassigned in a 1:1 fashion either to a vigorous physical activity (VAG: N=21) or to a postural gimnastic group (PGG: N=21). Differences between the two groups in QoL (on SF-12), and blood cortisol levels were assessed by ANOVA at different times. Results:In both the VAG and PGG, cortisol levels rose at the end of the trial, with statistically significant differences as compared to the baseline. QoL at the end of the trial was higher than in the national normative sample. Cortisol and QoL in both groups decreased slightly 12 weeks after the end of the trial (T2); however, only in the VAG did the difference from the initial level remain statistically significant. At T1 and T2, subjects with higher SF-12 scores were found in subsamples in both groups with cortisol levels moderately increased (between 200 and 300 mg/ml). Conclusion:In a sample of elderly subjects undergoing two different kinds of exercise, a better perception of Quality of Life was associated with a moderate, non-pathological increase in cortisol. The results need to be confirmed by trials on larger samples.
A study of the effects of factors in the physical environment of hotels on customers' perceptions of service quality and loyalty.

Service quality can be considered to be the customers' judgment about an entity's overall excellence and superiority of service 1997; Zeithaml, 1988). The most important aspects of service quality are tangible and intangible. Tangible aspects that may include building design and décor, ambient conditions, and equipment are considered to have a direct influence on the customer's perception of service quality. Empirical studies (Wakefield & Blodgett, 1996; Wener, 1985) have been conducted to confirm the effect of ambient conditions, facility aesthetics, and cleanliness on customer perceptions of service quality In a study of leisure activities of customers at professional baseball games, football games, and in casinos, facility aesthetics and cleanliness have been shown to have a positive impact on customers' perceptions of quality (Wakefield & Blodgett, 1996, 1999). Bitner (1992) found that spatial layout and functionality are particularly salient in complex self-serve settings. According to Wakefield and Blodgett (1999, p. 52), " the tangible physical surroundings may more directly influence consumers' affective responses ". So, the environment with all its components is a key factor which has a great influence on people's feelings, which is one of the reactions that encourage and force people to remain in the place where they are in or to leave (Russell & Ward, 1982). Berry and Parasuraman (1991) suggested that consumers develop their understanding of the relationship between the environment of a given service and the 'quality' of the service they may expect to receive. In addition, it has been confirmed that consumers depend on the physical and tangible evidence to which they have access to give
Bilingual Experiments on an Opinion Comparable Corpus

Up until now most of the methods published for polarity classification are applied to English texts. However, other languages on the Internet are becoming increasingly important. This paper presents a set of experiments on English and Spanish product reviews. Using a comparable corpus, a supervised method and two unsupervised methods have been assessed. Furthermore, a list of Spanish opinion words is presented as a valuable resource.
Comparing Same Day Sputum Microscopy with Conventional Sputum Microscopy for the Diagnosis of Tuberculosis – Chhattisgarh, India

Background The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends same day sputum microscopy (spot-spot) in preference to conventional strategy (spot-morning) for the diagnosis of smear positive tuberculosis with the view that completing diagnosis on a single day may be more convenient to the patients and reduce pre-treatment losses to follow-up. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional study in seven selected district level hospitals of Chhattisgarh State, India. During October 2012 – March 2013, two sputum specimens (spot-early morning) were collected from consecutively enrolled adult (≥18 years) presumptive TB patients as per current national guidelines. In addition, a second sample was collected (one hour after the collection of first spot sample) from the same patients. All the samples were examined by ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) microscopy. McNemar’s test was used to compare statistical differences in the proportion smear positive between the two approaches (spot-spot versus spot-morning). Results Of 2551 presumptive TB patients, 69% were male. All patients provided the first spot specimen, 2361 (93%) provided the second spot specimen, and 2435 (96%) provided an early morning specimen. 72% of specimens were mucopurulent in conventional strategy as compared to 60% in same day strategy. The proportion of smear-positive patients diagnosed by same day microscopy was 14%, as compared to 17% by the conventional method (p<0.001). A total of 73 (16.9%) potential cases were missed by the same day method compared to only 2 (0.5%) by the conventional method. Conclusion Same-day microscopy method missed 17% of smear-positive cases and contrary to prior perception, did not increase the proportion of suspects providing the second sample. These findings call for an urgent need to revisit the WHO recommendation of switching to same-day diagnosis over the current policy.
Hostility Modifies the Association between TV Viewing and Cardiometabolic Risk

Background. It was hypothesized that television viewing is predictive of cardiometabolic risk. Moreover, people with hostile personality type may be more susceptible to TV-induced negative emotions and harmful health habits which increase occurrence of cardiometabolic risk. Purpose. The prospective association of TV viewing on cardiometabolic risk was examined along with whether hostile personality trait was a modifier. Methods. A total of 3,269 Black and White participants in the coronary artery risk development in young adults (CARDIA) study were assessed from age 23 to age 35. A cross-lagged panel model at exam years 5, 10, 15, and 20, covering 15 years, was used to test whether hours of daily TV viewing predicted cardiometabolic risk, controlling confounding variables. Multiple group analysis of additional cross-lagged panel models stratified by high and low levels of hostility was used to evaluate whether the association was modified by the hostile personality trait. Results. The cross-lagged association of TV viewing at years 5 and 15 on clustered cardiometabolic risk score at years 10 and 20 was significant (B = 0.058 and 0.051), but not at 10 to 15 years. This association was significant for those with high hostility (B = 0.068 for exam years 5 to 10 and 0.057 for exam years 15 to 20) but not low hostility. Conclusion. These findings indicate that TV viewing is positively associated with cardiometabolic risk. Further, they indicate that hostility might be a modifier for the association between TV viewing and cardiometabolic risk.
Comparing and combining studies of bronchial responsiveness

Background: There is no standardised protocol for the measurement of bronchial responsiveness. Results from different studies are difficult to compare and combine. Methods: Analyses are divided between those of a continuous outcome, which can be directly standardised as effect size, and those based on a binary outcome. A published method is used to convert an odds ratio to equivalent effect size. Results: The use of effect size allows comparison between studies using a continuous outcome but different protocols, provided the relevant standard deviation is reported. Effect size from a continuous outcome and that derived from an odds ratio from an equivalent analysis gave similar results. Conclusions: Systematic reviews which include both continuous effect estimates and odds ratios can include both in one meta-analysis, provided relevant standard deviations are published for the former. Authors are encouraged to report these in all fields in which measurement protocols vary.
The Empirical (ir)Relevance of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve

We give an appraisal of the New Keynesian Phillips curve (NPC) as an empirical model of European inflation. We show that existing evidence reported in favour of the NPC on Euro-area and country data is due to a corroborative research strategy. In particular, goodness-of-fit is a weak criterion, since the NPC-fit is well approximated by a random walk. Instead we report the outcome of more critical tests, and the importance of modelling a system that includes the forcing variables as well as the rate of inflation is emphasized.Finally, encompassing tests are applied to open economy versions of the NPC for UK and Norway.
A Life-Cycle Approach to Characterising Environmental and Economic Impacts of Multifunctional Land-Use Systems: An Integrated Assessment in the UK

An integrated environmental and economic assessment of land use for food, energy and timber in the UK has been performed using environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and economic Life Cycle Costing (LCC), to explore complementary sustainability aspects of alternative land uses. The environmental assessment includes impacts on climate change, ecosystem services and biodiversity, all of which include soil carbon emissions. The systems explored include all processes from cradle to farm ‘gate’. The crops assessed were wheat and oilseed rape (under both organic and conventional farming systems), Scots Pine, and willow and Miscanthus. Food crops, particularly conventional food crops, are shown to have the highest climate-changing emissions per ha, whereas energy and forestry crops show negative net emissions. To a lesser extent, the same situation applies to impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity, with carbon storage in biomass playing a larger role than carbon in soils. The energy and forestry crops in this study show an overall beneficial environmental impact, in particular due to soil carbon sequestration, making these land uses the lowest contributors to climate change. Combining this with the non-renewable CO2 emissions displaced will mean that energy crops have an even lower impact. Economically, conventional food crops present the highest costs per ha, followed by organic food crops, energy and forestry crops. Integrating the results from LCA and LCC shows that the climate impacts per monetary unit of all land uses are dominated by soil management and, in the case of food production, also by fertilisation. Taxes or incentives such as “carbon charging” will encourage changes in practice in these areas to improve the sustainability of land management, mainly by building up Soil Organic Carbon (SOC).
Phosphorylation of Single Stranded RNA Virus Proteins and Potential for Novel Therapeutic Strategies

Post translational modification of proteins is a critical requirement that regulates function. Among the diverse kinds of protein post translational modifications, phosphorylation plays essential roles in protein folding, protein:protein interactions, signal transduction, intracellular localization, transcription regulation, cell cycle progression, survival and apoptosis. Protein phosphorylation is also essential for many intracellular pathogens to establish a productive infection cycle. Preservation of protein phosphorylation moieties in pathogens in a manner that mirrors the host components underscores the co-evolutionary trajectory of pathogens and hosts, and sheds light on how successful pathogens have usurped, either in part or as a whole, the host enzymatic machinery. Phosphorylation of viral proteins for many acute RNA viruses including Flaviviruses and Alphaviruses has been demonstrated to be critical for protein functionality. This review focuses on phosphorylation modifications that have been documented to occur on viral proteins with emphasis on acutely infectious, single stranded RNA viruses. The review additionally explores the possibility of repurposing Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved inhibitors as antivirals for the treatment of acute RNA viral infections.
Investors' Personality Influences Investment Decisions: Experimental Evidence on Extraversion and Neuroticism

ABSTRACT The authors analyze the impact of individuals' degree of extraversion and neuroticism on their decision making in an experimental asset market. To establish this link between research on experimental asset markets and social psychology the authors use a unique approach that combines a questionnaire designed to assess individuals' degree of extraversion and neuroticism and an experimental asset market to assess individual financial decision making. The dataset combines 364 undergraduate business students' questionnaire responses and their trading behavior in the asset market. The authors find that extraversion and neuroticism significantly influence individuals' behavior in the experimental asset market. Specifically, more extraverted individuals pay higher prices for financial assets and they buy more financial assets when assets are overpriced than less extraverted individuals do. More neurotic individuals hold less risky assets in their financial portfolios than less neurotic individuals do. Although a large part of the explanatory power appears to be driven by gender differences, the authors still find significant impact of extraversion and neuroticism after controlling for gender effects. The study findings suggest that further research on financial markets could benefit from including personality of market participants as a crucial explanatory factor.
Fast range image-based segmentation of sparse 3D laser scans for online operation

Object segmentation from 3D range data is an important topic in mobile robotics. A robot navigating in a dynamic environment needs to be aware of objects that might change or move. A segmentation of the laser scans into individual objects is typically the first processing step before a further analysis is performed. In this paper, we present a fast method that segments 3D range data into different objects, runs online, and has small computational demands. Our approach avoids the explicit computation of the 3D point cloud and performs all computations directly on a 2D range image, which enables a fast segmentation for each scan. A further relevant aspect of our method is that we can segment objects even if the 3D data is sparse. This is important for scanners such as the new Velodyne Puck. We implemented our approach in C++ and ROS and thoroughly tested it using different 3D scanners. Our method can operate at over 100 Hz for the 64-beam Velodyne scanner on a single core of a mobile CPU while producing high quality segmentation results. In addition to this, we make the source code for the approach available.
Lost in transition — meeting the challenge through integrated care . Highlights from the 9 th International Conference on Integrated Care in Vienna

The 9th International Conference on Integrated Care (INIC09) brought over 160 researchers, policy-makers, managers and practitioners from 22 countries to Vienna, Austria, on the 5th and 6th of November 2009. The INIC09 provided a platform to exchange experiences, share knowledge and discuss ideas during the sessions as well as in the leisure time. Overall, the conference offered three key note speeches and four parallel sessions with 54 paper presentations and 19 posters discussed in five different streams and three themes.
Loss of interneurons innervating pyramidal cell dendrites and axon initial segments in the CA1 region of the hippocampus following pilocarpine‐induced seizures

In the pilocarpine model of chronic limbic seizures, vulnerability of GABAergic interneurons to excitotoxic damage has been reported in the hippocampal CA1 region. However, little is known about the specific types of interneurons that degenerate in this region. In order to characterize these interneurons, we performed quantitative analyses of the different populations of GABAergic neurons labeled for their peptide or calcium‐binding protein content. Our data demonstrate that the decrease in the number of GAD mRNA‐containing neurons in the stratum oriens of CA1 in pilocarpine‐treated rats involved two subpopulations of GABAergic interneurons: interneurons labeled for somatostatin only (O‐LM and bistratified cells) and interneurons labeled for parvalbumin only (basket and axo‐axonic cells). Stratum oriens interneurons labeled for somatostatin/calbindin or somatostatin/parvalbumin were preserved. The decrease in number of somatostatin‐ and parvalbumin‐containing neurons was observed as early as 72 hours after the sustained seizures induced by pilocarpine injection. Many degenerating cell bodies in the stratum oriens and degenerating axon terminals in the stratum lacunosum‐moleculare were observed at 1 and 2 weeks after injection. In addition, the synaptic coverage of the axon initial segment of CA1 pyramidal cells was significantly decreased in pilocarpine‐treated animals. These results indicate that the loss of somatostatin‐containing neurons corresponds preferentially to the degeneration of interneurons with an axon projecting to stratum lacunosum‐moleculare (O‐LM cells) and suggest that the death of these neurons is mainly responsible for the deficit of dendritic inhibition reported in this region. We demonstrate that the loss of parvalbumin‐containing neurons corresponds to the death of axo‐axonic cells, suggesting that perisomatic inhibition and mechanisms controlling action potential generation are also impaired in this model. J. Comp. Neurol. 459:407–425, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Rehabilitation after stroke.

BACKGROUND Stroke is becoming more common in Germany as the population ages. Its long-term sequelae can be alleviated by early reperfusion in stroke units and by complication management and functional restoration in early-rehabilitation and rehabilitation centers. METHODS Selective review of the literature. RESULTS Successful rehabilitation depends on systematic treatment by an interdisciplinary team of experienced specialists. In the area of functional restoration, there has been major progress in our understanding of the physiology of learning, relearning, training, and neuroenhancement. There have also been advances in supportive pharmacotherapy and robot technology. CONCLUSION Well-organized acute and intermediate rehabilitation after stroke can provide patients with the best functional results attainable on the basis of our current scientific understanding. Further experimental and clinical studies will be needed to expand our knowledge and improve the efficacy of rehabilitation.
The variable spin-down rate of the transient magnetar XTE J1810−197

We have analyzed XMM-Newton and Chandra observations of the transient magnetar XTE J1810-197, spanning more than 11 years, from the initial phases of the 2003 outburst to the current quiescent level. We investigated the evolution of the pulsar spin period and we found evidence for two distinct regimes: during the outburst decay, the spin derivative (nu_dot) was highly variable in the range -(2-4.5)x10^-13 Hz/s, while during quiescence the spin-down rate was more stable at an average value of -1x10^{-13} Hz/s. Only during ~3000 days (from MJD 54165 to MJD 56908) in the quiescent stage, it was possible to find a phase-connected timing solution, with nu_dot = -4.9x10^{-14} Hz/s, and a positive second frequency derivative, nu_dotdot = 1.8x10^{-22} Hz/s. These results are in agreement with the behavior expected if the outburst of XTE J1810-197 was due to a strong magnetospheric twist.
Evaluation of a Portable Monitor (Watch-PAT100) and Implications for Clinical Guidelines for the Use of Portable Monitors in Diagnosing OSAS

Objective: To evaluate, industry independently, the accuracy of the Watch-PAT100 system (WP100) (Itamar Medical; Caesarea, Israel), a portable home sleep test, compared to polysomnography, the gold standard for diagnosing obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. Methods: Prospective clinical trial. 27 patients (24 male, 3 female) were evaluated at our institution's sleep laboratory. The apnea hypopnea index and oxygen desaturation index were used to compare the 2 testing modalities. Results: Non-parametrical testing showed a Kendall's tau = 0.685 for apnea hypopnea index and 0.748 for oxygen desaturation index. We found that the WP100 system overestimated the severity of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome in 33% when compared to polysomnography. The test-agreement was in particular poor when the WP100 indicated moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. Conclusion: The WP100 seems accurate for classification of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome severity up to a WP100- measured apnea hypopnea index of 15. In patients with an apnea hypopnea index of more than 15 as measured with the WP100, additional polysomnography should be performed.
2 The Case for Price Stability

Reasoning within the New Neoclassical Synthesis (NNS) we previously recommended that price stability should be the primary objective of monetary policy. We called this a neutral policy because it keeps output at its potential, defined as the outcome of an imperfectly competitive real business cycle model with a constant markup of price over marginal cost. We explore the foundations of neutral policy more fully in this paper. Using the principles of public finance, we derive conditions under which markup constancy is optimal monetary policy. Price stability as the primary policy objective has been criticized on a number of grounds which we evaluate in this paper. We show that observed inflation persistence in U.S. time series is consistent with the absence of structural inflation stickiness as is the case in the benchmark NNS economy. We consider reasons why monetary policy might depart from markup constancy and price stability, but we argue that optimal departures are likely to be minor. Finally, we argue that the presence of nominal wage stickiness in labor markets does not undermine the case for neutral policy and price stability.
MHD Stagnation-Point Flow of a Carreau Fluid and Heat Transfer in the Presence of Convective Boundary Conditions

In the present investigation we analyze the impact of magnetic field on the stagnation-point flow of a generalized Newtonian Carreau fluid. The convective surface boundary conditions are considered to investigate the thermal boundary layer. The leading partial differential equations of the current problem are altered to a set of ordinary differential equations by picking local similarity transformations. The developed non-linear ordinary differential equations are then numerically integrated via Runge-Kutta Fehlberg method after changing into initial value problems. This investigation explores that the momentum and thermal boundary layers are significantly influenced by various pertinent parameters like the Hartmann number M, velocity shear ratio parameter α, Weissenberg number We, power law index n, Biot number γ and Prandtl number Pr. The analysis further reveals that the fluid velocity as well as the skin friction is raised by the velocity shear ratio parameter. Moreover, strong values of the Hartmann number correspond to thinning of the momentum boundary layer thickness while quite the opposite is true for the thermal boundary layer thickness. Additionally, it is seen that the numerical computations are in splendid consent with previously reported studies.