Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
What is Middle Class About the Middle Classes Around the World?

This paper uses household surveys from 13 developing countries to describe consumption choices, health and education investments, employment patterns and other features of the of the economic lives of the “middle classes” defined as those whose daily consumption per capita is between $2 and $4 or between $6 and $10. The data shed lights on differences and similarities between the middle classes and the poor and helps discriminating between various theories of the role of the middle classes in the development process. We find that the average middle class person is not an entrepreneur in waiting: while he or she might run a business, this is usually a small, not very profitable business. The single most important characteristic of the middle class seems to be that they are more likely to be holding a steady job. Perhaps as a result, they also have fewer, healthier, and better educated children. While there are clear differences in consumption patterns between the poor and the middle classes, there are also very strong resemblance within countries, and contrasts across countries, which might either reflect the importance of relative prices in shaping consumption decisions or the power of norms/fashions in determining consumption.
An audit of aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage: earlier resuscitation and surgery reduces inpatient stay and deaths from rebleeding.

OBJECTIVE--To audit the outcome in patients with subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) after a change in management strategy. METHODS--A retrospective analysis of patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage over a 20 month period (phase 1) was followed by a prospective analysis of patients presenting during the next 20 months (phase 2) in which a protocol driven management regime of immediate intravenous fluid resuscitation and earlier surgery was pursued. Patients in this phase were grouped into those receiving early (within four days of subarachnoid haemorrhage) and late (after four days of subarachnoid haemorrhage) surgery. In phase 1, 75 out of a total of 92 patients underwent surgery on (median) day 12. From phase 2, 109 patients out of a total of 129 underwent surgery on (median) day 4, 58 of which had their surgery within 4 days of the subarachnoid haemorrhage. Patients in each phase/group were well matched for demographic features, site of aneurysm, and severity of subarachnoid haemorrhage. RESULTS--The surgical morbidity and mortality were no different in the two phases (P < 0.92; chi2 test). The management outcomes in the two phases of the study were also no different (P < 0.52). However, there was a significant reduction in the rebleed rate in patients undergoing surgery within four days of the subarachnoid haemorrhage in phase 2 (P < 0.0001) with an associated trend towards reduced incidence of postoperative ischaemia (P = 0.06) and mortality (P = 0.11). Operating earlier in phase 2 of the trial resulted in a lower total hospital inpatient stay of 15.8 (95% CI 13.1-18.5) days for survivors compared with 25.7 (95% CI 21.6-29.8) days in the late group (P < 0.00001; t test). CONCLUSIONS--surgical morbidity and mortality seemed independent of the timing of aneurysm surgery. Early surgery within four days was associated with a highly significant reduction in rebleed rate, and in the duration of total hospital inpatient stay.
Sudden Stops in a Business Cycle Model with Credit Constraints: a Fisherian Deflation of Tobin's Q

Sudden Stops are characterized by large current account reversals, severe recessions, and corrections in relative prices. This phenomenon is a puzzle for a large class of business cycle models in which the current account is a vehicle for consumption smoothing and investment financing. Models in this class explain Sudden Stops as the result of large, unanticipated shocks to credit market access, but this explanation is at odds with the history of Sudden Stops and is incomplete because it obtains the current account reversal by assumption. Why economies in which agents know that Sudden Stops can happen become vulnerable to these crises? Can equilibrium business cycle theory explain infrequent Sudden Stops nested within “normal” business cycles without recurring to large, unexpected shocks? This paper answers these questions by constructing a model in which typical realizations of exogenous shocks to the price of imported intermediate goods, the world interest rate, and productivity can trigger credit constraints on foreign debt and working capital. This occurs only when agents are highly indebted, and these high-debt states are endogenous outcomes reached with positive probability in the long run. Sudden Stop dynamics are driven by endogenous financing premia on foreign debt and working capital and Fisher’s debt-deflation mechanism. The latter amplifies the effects of adverse shocks hitting the economy and increases their persistence.
The personality of freestyle snowboarders: implications for product development.

Several approaches with reference to customer involvement in the product development process can be found in the research literature. The majority of studies, focusing primarily on customer involvement in the product or service development process, are based on research in the area of new product development. However, these studies did not describe which customers or groups of customers are suitable to be involved in the product development process of services. Meanwhile some researchers have drawn their focus on this topic. The empirical personality psychological traits approach as well as the differential psychology put the individual in the focus of the analyses. To this end, a research of snowboarders’ personality profile and their involvement in product design was carried out on a sample of 50 respondents active in the alpine region of Austria, Switzerland and Italy. The results have revealed that snowboarders differ from general population. The standard deviations of all five scales are lower for the freestyle snowboarders than for those of the reference population. Freestyle snowboarders are scoring higher on dimensions of extraversion, openness to experience, compatibility and conscientiousness. This research is an attempt to bring together psychology and social leisure sciences and to derive new findings regarding this under-investigated extreme sport segment, which in many cases displays typical lead user consumers in the field of sport tourism.
A randomized prospective study comparing characteristics of Desflurane with Isoflurane under low flow anaesthesia using equilibration time

Introduction: Equilibration point of an inhalational agent is the transition point when ratio of expired (Fe) to inspired (Fi) concentration of inhalational anaesthetic agent (Fe/Fi) reaches 0.8 or when uptake of volatile agent reaches 80%. It helps in reducing the duration of initial high gas flows before switching over to low flows. Aim: To compare Desflurane with Isoflurane for equilibration time, intraoperative hemodynamic parameters and post extubation recovery parameters. Materials and Methods: Depending on the volatile anesthetic agent being used patients were randomly allocated into two groups. Group I (n =25) received Desflurane and Group II (n=25) received Isoflurane as inhalational anesthetic agent. In all patients low flow anaesthesia was given after achieving equilibration time and that time was noted. Other parameters measured were intraoperative heart rate, mean blood pressure, mean EtN2O, mean EtFe (End tidal volatile anesthetic agent concentration), recovery parameters (recovery time, recovery score and vitals) and any complications if any. Statistics: Analysis was performed on SPSS (Statistical package for social sciences) version 17.0 Statistical Analysis Software. Result: The equilibration point for group I was achieved in 2.18 ± 0.84 min and for group II was achieved in 10.08 ± 2.36 min and this difference was statistically significant. The intraoperative heart rate and MAP did not differ significantly (p>0.05) between the two groups at all time periods. On comparing, post extubation vitals i.e. HR (8.1%) and recovery time (69.9%) they were found significantly (p<0.05 or p<0.001) different and higher in Group II as compared to Group I. Further, the recovery score (i.e. awake and responding to command at extubation) was found significantly (p<0.05) higher (36.0%) in Group I as compared to Group II. Conclusion: Desflurane use results in shorter equilibrium time and earlier reduction of FGF with early and better recovery than Isoflurane.
Statistical textural features for detection of microcalcifications in digitized mammograms

Clustered microcalcifications on X-ray mammograms are an important sign for early detection of breast cancer. Texture-analysis methods can be applied to detect clustered microcalcifications in digitized mammograms. In this paper, a comparative study of texture-analysis methods is performed for the surrounding region-dependence method, which has been proposed by the authors, and conventional texture-analysis methods, such as the spatial gray level dependence method, the gray-level run-length method, and the gray-level difference method. Textural features extracted by these methods are exploited to classify regions of interest (ROI's) into positive ROI's containing clustered microcalcifications and negative ROI's containing normal tissues. A three-layer backpropagation neural network is used as a classifier. The results of the neural network for the texture-analysis methods are evaluated by using a receiver operating-characteristics (ROC) analysis. The surrounding region-dependence method is shown to be superior to the conventional texture-analysis methods with respect to classification accuracy and computational complexity.
A Simple User Authentication Scheme for Grid Computing

The security issue has become an important concern of grid computing. To prevent the grid resources from being illegally visited, the strong mutual authentication is needed for user and server. In this paper, based on the elliptic curve cryptosystem, we would like to propose an efficient user authentication scheme for grid computing. The proposed scheme only requires a one-way hash function and server private key, which makes it more simple.
Real User Evaluation of Spoken Dialogue Systems Using Amazon Mechanical Turk

This paper describes a framework for evaluation of spoken dialogue systems. Typically, evaluation of dialogue systems is performed in a controlled test environment with carefully selected and instructed users. However, this approach is very demanding. An alternative is to recruit a large group of users who evaluate the dialogue systems in a remote setting under virtually no supervision. Crowdsourcing technology, for example Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT), provides an efficient way of recruiting subjects. This paper describes an evaluation framework for spoken dialogue systems using AMT users and compares the obtained results with a recent trial in which the systems were tested by locally recruited users. The results suggest that the use of crowdsourcing technology is feasible and it can provide reliable results. Copyright © 2011 ISCA.
Perioperative Management of Dabigatran: A Prospective Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND The perioperative management of dabigatran in clinical practice is heterogeneous. We performed this study to evaluate the safety of perioperative management of dabigatran using a specified protocol. METHODS AND RESULTS Patients treated with dabigatran and planned for an invasive procedure were eligible for inclusion. The timing of the last dose of dabigatran before the procedure was based on the creatinine clearance and procedure-related bleeding risk. Resumption of dabigatran was prespecified according to the complexity of the surgery and consequences of a bleeding complication. Patients were followed up for 30 days for major bleeding (primary outcome), minor bleeding, arterial thromboembolism, and death. We included 541 cases: 324 procedures (60%) with standard risk of bleeding and 217 procedures (40%) with increased risk of bleeding. The last dose of dabigatran was at 24, 48, or 96 hours before surgery according to the protocol in 46%, 37%, and 6%, respectively, of the patients. Resumption was timed according to protocol in 77% with 75 mg as the first dose on the day of procedure in 40% of the patients. Ten patients (1.8%; 95% confidence interval, 0.7-3.0) had major bleeding, and 28 patients (5.2%; 95% confidence interval, 3.3-7.0) had minor bleeding events. The only thromboembolic complication was transient ischemic attack in 1 patient (0.2%; 95% confidence interval, 0-0.5), and there were 4 deaths unrelated to bleeding or thrombosis. Bridging was not used preoperatively but was administered in 9 patients (1.7%) postoperatively. CONCLUSION Our protocol for perioperative management of dabigatran appears to be effective and feasible.
Bacteriological assessment of chlorinated and non-chlorinated water in Morogoro Municipality, Tanzania

This cross sectional study was conducted to assess the bacterial contamination in chlorinated and nonchlorinated water in Morogoro Municipality from October 2013 – January 2014. Fifty two samples were collected from selected taps (chlorinated samples) and directly from the water sources (non -chlorinated samples). The total viable count (TVC) was performed on nutrient agar while the total coliform count (TCC) was done by Most Probable Number (MPN) using MacConkey broth. It was found that the TVC ranged between 530 CFU/100 mL and 600 CFU/100 mL during dry season and the same range during rainy season. The TVC ranged between 530 CFU/100 mL and 600 CFU/100 mL during dry season and 600 CFU/100 mL to 650 CFU/100 mL during rainy season. The results for TCC positive chlorinated samples during dry season ranged between 3.6/100 mL and 150/100 mL while during the rainy season it ranged between 15/100 mL and 150/100 mL. The highest TCC were found at Department of Animal Science and Production in both season for chlorinated water and 41% of nonchlorinated water during dry season while all the samples of nonchlorinated water during rainy season had high TCC count. Also the results further showed that TCC for positive nonchlorinated samples during dry season ranged between 210/100 mL and >1100/100 mL while it was >1100/100 mL during rainy season. In chlorinated water, significant difference (p=0.332) was observed when TVC during dry season was compared with that of rainy season. Based on the results of this study, it is concluded that chlorinated and nonchlorinated water show high number of TCC than that recommended by WHO and Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS). However, there was low TVC which was within recommended standards. The high TCC observed in treated water in this study may pose a risk of acquiring water-borne diseases to the Morogoro community.
Model-based Estimation of High Frequency Jump Diffusions with Microstructure Noise and Stochastic Volatility

When analysing the volatility related to high frequency financial data, mostly non-parametric approaches based on realised or bipower variation are applied. This article instead starts from a continuous time diffusion model and derives a parametric analog at high frequency for it, allowing simultaneously for microstructure effects, jumps, missing observations and stochastic volatility. Estimation of the model delivers measures of daily variation outperforming their non-parametric counterparts. Both with simulated and actual exchange rate data, the feasibility of this novel approach is shown. The parametric setting is used to estimate the intra-day trend in the Euro/U.S. Dollar exchange rate.
CD200 Expression in B-Cell Chronic Lymphoproliferative Disorders

Background Flow cytometry immunophenotyping (FCIP) is used for rapid, specific diagnosis of B-chronic lymphoproliferative disorders (BCLPDs). However, cases may deviate from the typical immunophenotype; therefore, there is a need for adding new marker(s) for differentiating BCLPDs. Lately, few researches highlighted CD200 expression in some BCLPDs. Our aim was to evaluate CD200 expression in different BCLPDs and whether adding CD200 to BCLPD-FCIP routine panels could improve the ability of their differential diagnosis. Methods We evaluated CD200 expression in 49 BCLPD patients and 26 age- and sex-matched control subjects. Flow cytometry immunophenotyping first panel included CD5, CD19, sIg, CD23, CD22, CD79b, and FMC7; for BCLPDs other than chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and mantle cell lymphoma, CD11c, CD103, CD25, and CD10 were evaluated. Results Using tricolor FCIP, CD200 showed high bright expression on CD5/19-positive clone in all B-CLL patients (100%), with a mean of 94% (SD, 11%); in the 2 cases of hairy cell leukemia, CD200 was brightly expressed on 96% and 99% of cells. In all other BCLPDs including mantle cell lymphoma, follicular lymphoma and splenic marginal zone lymphoma, CD200 expression (on CD19/22-positive cells) was less than 20% with a mean of 10% (SD, 8%) and a dim pattern. CD200 expression was significantly higher in CLL compared with non-Hodgkin lymphoma groups (P < 0.001). Conclusions Evaluating CD200 expression has a great impact on accurate BCLPDs diagnosis and could be added to the BCLPD routine panels. The high expression of CD200 in B-cell CLL and hairy cell leukemia could open the option for targeted immune (anti-CD200) therapy.
Association of interleukin-2, -4 and -10 with dengue severity

Background: Dengue is an arboviral disease caused by four distinct serotypes of dengue virus. The pathogenesis of dengue is not very clearly understood. Various pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines are involved in the immune pathogenesis of dengue. Interleukin (IL)-2/IL-2 receptor interaction is supposed to play a protective role, while IL-4 acts as pro-inflammatory whereas IL-10 acts as anti-inflammatory cytokines. So far, not much information is available regarding the established role of these cytokines with dengue infection and severity. Aims: our study aimed to show the association of IL-2, -4, and -10 with severity of dengue infection. Settings and Design: This was a cross-sectional study. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted in the year 2015; 150 blood samples from suspected dengue cases were confirmed for dengue and then with an equal number of healthy control samples were tested for cytokines levels (IL-2, -4, and -10) by ELISA. Severity of the dengue infection was determined on the basis of clinical manifestations based on the WHO criteria.Statistical Analysis: for statistical analysis, SPSS version 21 (IBM, New York, United States) was used. Results: Out of 150 samples, 56 samples came to be dengue positive. Thirty-eight (67.85%) cases were classified as nonsevere dengue and 18 (32.15%) were severe dengue. The serum levels of IL-4 and -10 were significantly raised in severe dengue cases as compared to nonsevere dengue cases. No significant association was observed between serum IL-2 levels and the severity of dengue. Conclusion: IL-4 and -10 levels can be used as marker of severe dengue and help in early preparedness to start the treatment in the line of severe dengue.
Persistently low natural killer cell activity, age, and environmental stress as predictors of infectious morbidity.

In recent studies of 'low natural killer (NK) cell syndrome', low NK activity was measured in individuals who were symptomatic, and therefore a causal relationship between low NK activity and infectious or other disease manifestations could not be concluded. However, preliminary work by members of our collaborative team (S.L. and R.H.) provided some indications for chronic low NK activity preceding and predicting subsequent infectious morbidity. This present study was designed to address this causal question in a larger sample, using a longitudinal design. Subjects were 106 healthy normal volunteers from the community. They were examined medically and psychosocially at baseline, and were then followed over a 6-month interval, with serial monthly assessments over the study period. The results supported our hypothesis that individuals who were currently healthy, but who exhibited a pattern of natural immunity characterized by persistently low NK cytotoxicity would be at risk for development of infectious sequelae over a 6-month follow-up period. The results also showed that younger age and the perception of more severe 'hassles' or stressors also predicted more infectious morbidity during the 6-month study period. Chronological age appeared to have both a direct, as well as indirect (via NK activity) association with illness outcome. Contrary to our expectation, the report of environmental stressors was directly associated with illness outcome, but not indirectly associated with outcome via natural immunity.
A comparative analysis method for detecting binding sites in coding regions

While the problem of predicting transcription factor binding sites in a gene's promoter region has been extensively studied, binding sites located in coding regions are also crucial for regulating gene expression but are more difficult to detect. Coding region binding sites are mostly involved in splicing regulation, but also in transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation. We consider the problem of predicting such binding sites by comparative analysis. Comparative analysis is based on the idea that functional sequences tend to evolve at slower rate than nonfunctional sequence, making unusually well conserved regions likely to be of interest. The difficulty in applying comparative analysis to the detection of binding sites located in coding sequence is that the whole sequence is under selective pressure, because it needs to code for a functional protein. We present a technique to distinguish between conservation due to constraints on the amino acid product and conservation due to constraints imposed by regulatory factors. More precisely, we show how to calculate the probability of observing a certain degree of conservation among the nucleotides of given set of orthologous codons, given a set of constraints on the amino acids they need to encode. The algorithms described are implemented in a program called Cosmo, available at http://bio.cs. washington.edu. We ran Cosmo on several genes known to contain exonic splicing enhancers and report the results.
Cisplatin-Induced Hair Cell Death Requires STAT1 and Is Attenuated by Epigallocatechin Gallate

Cisplatin is a chemotherapy drug that frequently causes auditory impairment due to the death of mechanosensory hair cells. Cisplatin ototoxicity may result from oxidative stress, DNA damage, and inflammatory cytokines. The transcription factor STAT1, an important mediator of cell death, can regulate all of these processes in other cell types. We used cultured utricles from mature Swiss Webster mice to investigate the role of STAT1 in cisplatin-induced hair cell death. We show that STAT1 phosphorylation is an early event in both hair cells and support cells after exposure of utricles to cisplatin. STAT1 phosphorylation peaked after 4 h of cisplatin exposure and returned to control levels by 8 h of exposure. The STAT1 inhibitor epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) attenuated STAT1 phosphorylation in cisplatin-treated utricles and resulted in concentration-dependent increases in hair cell survival at 24 h postexposure. Furthermore, we show that utricular hair cells from STAT1-deficient mice are resistant to cisplatin toxicity. EGCG failed to provide additional protection from cisplatin in STAT1-deficient mice, further supporting the hypothesis that the protective effects of EGCG are due to its inhibition of STAT1. Treatment with IFN-γ, which also causes STAT1 activation, also induced hair cell death in wild-type but not STAT1-deficient mice. These results show that STAT1 is required for maximal cisplatin-induced hair cell death in the mouse utricle and suggest that treatment with EGCG may be a useful strategy for prevention of cisplatin ototoxicity.