Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Procalcitonin does discriminate between sepsis and systemic inflammatory response syndrome

Aims: To evaluate whether procalcitonin (PCT) and C reactive protein (CRP) are able to discriminate between sepsis and systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) in critically ill children. Methods: Prospective, observational study in a paediatric intensive care unit. Kinetics of PCT and CRP were studied in patients undergoing open heart surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) (SIRS model; group I1) and patients with confirmed bacterial sepsis (group II). Results: In group I, PCT median concentration was 0.24 ng/ml (reference value <2.0 ng/ml). There was an increment of PCT concentrations which peaked immediately after CPB (median 0.58 ng/ml), then decreased to 0.47 ng/ml at 24 h; 0.33 ng/ml at 48 h, and 0.22 ng/ml at 72 h. CRP median concentrations remained high on POD1 (36.6 mg/l) and POD2 (13.0 mg/l). In group II, PCT concentrations were high at admission (median 9.15 ng/ml) and subsequently decreased in 11/14 patients who progressed favourably (median 0.31 ng/ml). CRP levels were high in only 11/14 patients at admission. CRP remained high in 13/14 patients at 24 h; in 12/14 at 48 h; and in 10/14 patients at 72 h. Median values were 95.0, 50.9, 86.0, and 20.3 mg/l, respectively. The area under the ROC curve was 0.99 for PCT and 0.54 for CRP. Cut off concentrations to differentiate SIRS from sepsis were >2 ng/ml for PCT and >79 mg/l for CRP. Conclusion: PCT is able to differentiate between SIRS and sepsis while CRP is not. Moreover, unlike CRP, PCT concentrations varied with the evolution of sepsis.
Rural Forest Management in Sierra Leone: The Role of Economic (In)Equality in Facilitating Collective Action

While significant theoretical developments have been made in the research on common pool resources, heterogeneity remains a contested issue. Focusing on economic inequality, one particular aspect of heterogeneity, we examine its impact in facilitating cooperation in two rural forest communities in Sierra Leone. The findings reinforce prevalent ambiguities in the literature: in the context of economic inequality cooperation was thriving, while in the setting of uniform poverty cooperation was largely absent. Though further research is imperative, the key recommendation is that policies directed towards rural communities should take into account their ability to craft robust self-governing systems.
The use of data envelopment analysis to monitor hotel productivity

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to monitor and benchmark productivity in a chain of 15 hotels over a 12-month period. Quarter results were compared with each other and with standard accounting data for the same period. In this way it was possible to identify and study units which showed anomalous behavour in terms of their measured productivity and gross profit. These were apparently related to factors other than size or staffing levels. Advantages and disadvantages of DEA are discussed, as well as its potential for the motivation and appraisal of local management and for optimizing budgetary control. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
NK 1-receptor activation prevents hydrocarbon-induced lung injury in mice

Robledo, Raymond F. , and Mark L. Witten. NK1receptor activation prevents hydrocarbon-induced lung injury in mice. Am. J. Physiol. 276 (Lung Cell. Mol. Physiol. 20): L229–L238, 1999. —Recent evidence suggests that neurokinin (NK)-receptor activation may have a protective role in maintaining lung integrity when challenged by airborne toxicants such as sulfur dioxide, ozone, acrolein, or hydrocarbons. To investigate the effect of NK1-receptor activation on hydrocarbon-induced lung injury, B6.A.D. (Ahrd/Nats) mice received subchronic exposures to JP-8 jet fuel (JP-8). Lung injury was assessed by the analysis of pulmonary physiology, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, and morphology. Hydrocarbon exposure to target JP-8 concentrations of 50 mg/m3, with saline treatment, was characterized by enhanced respiratory permeability to 99mTc-labeled diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid, alveolar macrophage toxicity, and bronchiolar epithelial damage. Mice administered [Sar,Met(O2)]substance P, an NK1-receptor agonist, after each JP-8 exposure had the appearance of normal pulmonary values and tissue morphology. In contrast, endogenous NK1-receptor antagonism by CP-96345 administration exacerbated JP-8-enhanced permeability, alveolar macrophage toxicity, and bronchiolar epithelial injury. These data indicate that NK1-receptor activation may have a protective role in preventing the development of hydrocarbon-induced lung injury, possibly through the modulation of bronchiolar epithelial function.
Keratoacanthoma of the lip: A case report with emphasis on histogenesis

Keratoacanthoma (KA) is a benign epithelial tumor which presents clinically as a proliferating dome-shaped keratin-filled crater. The lesion occurs predominantly upon sun-exposed areas of the body and is known to arise from hair follicle. Actinic rays are a major contributing factor in the etiology. It simulates grossly as well as microscopically a low-grade squamous cell carcinoma. KAs occur habitually on the mucous membrane as well, but their origin in these cases is debatable, owing to the lack of hair follicles in these sites. Our report is an attempt to demonstrate the cells that could be responsible for initiation of this lesion on the oral mucosa.
China Energy - A Guide for the Perplexed

The purpose of this policy analysis is to make visible the internal dynamics of the Chinese energy situation. The analysis is divided into four sections: (a) What's driving demand: An explanation of the internal dynamics fueling China's energy needs. (b) China's energy supply system: An explanation of the policies, institutions, and markets China relies on to meet its demand. (c) Global impacts: An accounting of the external implications of China's energy choices in light of the systematic analysis of demand and supply dynamics. The key point is: While the roots of China's energy profile are a domestic matter, the shoots and leaves affect the vital interests of others, and we all have a legitimate basis to be 'nosy neighbors' when it comes to China's energy needs. (d) Conclusions and the policy agenda: By starting from a holistic understanding of China's demand and supply fundamentals, both policymakers and civil society groups can play an even more positive role on the China energy agenda. The key point is: China's energy challenge is rooted in systemic conditions that go beyond the energy sector per se, and therefore energy policy alone will not provide the answers. Coordinating energy analysis with the broader policy agendamore » on macro and external imbalances is essential. The international community must be realistic in working to mitigate negative impacts, building international energy regimes that include China, and exploring policy options not dependent on Beijing's readiness to proceed in an optimal manner. 56 refs., 39 figs., 7 tabs. « less
Policing Intimate Partner Violence: Attitudes toward Risk Assessment and Collaboration with Social Workers.

Risk-informed collaborative police-social service interventions are an emerging strategy intended to enhance offender accountability and victim-survivors' safety in intimate partner violence (IPV) cases. These interventions use risk assessment to determine appropriate interventions and enhance the police response for dangerous offenders by engaging in collaboration with social work advocates. Because little is known about the responsiveness of police officers to risk-informed collaborative interventions, this study examines police officer (N = 544) attitudes toward IPV risk assessment and collaboration with social workers. The majority of police officers did not believe a social worker would be helpful at the scene of an IPV incident. However, those who agreed that a social worker would be helpful were more likely to be knowledgeable about the dynamics of IPV. Officers who believed risk assessment was important were more likely to believe that the police response to IPV is necessary. Finally, officers' perceived knowledge about risk for homicide was not consistently associated with actual knowledge about IPV. These findings suggest a need for knowledgeable social workers to collaborate with police, particularly in high-risk cases, and to offer training for officers on risk factors for homicide, coercive control, and misperceptions about IPV.
Indigenes' and migrants' access to land in peri-urban areas of Accra, Ghana

In many parts of the developing world, it has been observed that growing population pressure and the development of market economies as a cause and consequence of urbanisation are leading to significant changes in land tenure practices and related rights. Increasingly, land rights in urban and peri-urban areas are becoming more individualised and privatised, in contrast to communal or usufruct rights. Using questionnaire surveys and focus group discussions, this article explores migrants' and indigenes' access to peri-urban land in Ghana's largest metropolis, Accra. The study found that an increase in land transactions due to the emergence of land markets in this land-scarce area of Ghana is resulting in usufruct and inheritance rights over land under customary tenure regimes no longer being guaranteed, as many people belonging to land-owing families (indigenes) in peri-urban Accra are left to compete for less land with migrants or strangers. The implications of this situation for urban development in Gha.
Testosterone Affects Gaze Aversion From Angry Faces Outside of Conscious Awareness

Throughout vertebrate phylogeny, testosterone has motivated animals to obtain and maintain social dominance—a fact suggesting that unconscious primordial brain mechanisms are involved in social dominance. In humans, however, the prevailing view is that the neocortex is in control of primordial drives, and testosterone is thought to promote social dominance via conscious feelings of superiority, indefatigability, strength, and anger. Here we show that testosterone administration in humans prolongs dominant staring into the eyes of threatening faces that are viewed outside of awareness, without affecting consciously experienced feelings. These findings reveal that testosterone motivates social dominance in humans in much the same ways that it does in other vertebrates: involuntarily, automatically, and unconsciously.
Efficiency of Innovation Systems in Europe: An Institutional Approach to the Diversity of National Profiles

Globalization did not create convergence to a unique economic model among countries. Even in developed countries, the answers to the pressures of markets underline the existence of a variety of capitalisms. The analysis of innovation systems, in particular at the national level, is adequate as a preliminary approach to understand the diversity of profiles and institutional architectures. The article benefits from the broader notion of national innovation system to understand the profiles of 15 European countries. By analysing central building blocks and institutional complementarities through the creation of indexes based on 64 variables and a cluster analysis, it was possible to understand the different levels of institutional efficiency in the analysed dimensions for the selected groups of countries.
The boundaries of financial reporting and how to extend them

In this study we investigate the usefulness of financial information to investors in comparison to the total information in the marketplace.1 Our evidence indicates that the usefulness of reported earnings, cash flows, and book (equity) values has been deteriorating over the past 20 years. We document that this deterioration in usefulness, in the face of both increasing investor demand for relevant information and persistent regulator efforts to improve the quality and timeliness of financial information, is due to change. Whether driven by innovation, competition, or deregulation, the impact of change on firms' operations and economic conditions is not adequately reflected by the current reporting system. The large investments that generally drive change, such as restructuring costs and R&D expenditures, are immediately expensed, while the benefits of change are recorded later and are not matched with
Method for determining line drop compensator parameters of low voltage regulator using support vector machine

Highly accurate predictions of load demand and photovoltaic (PV) output have become possible in recent years because of improved measuring instruments and the increase of databases on load demand and PV output. The appropriate control parameters for actual power system operation can be determined by using these predictions. Although parameters determined by conventional methods are accurate, they may not be determined in time before the beginning of operation because extensive time is required for the calculations. In this paper, the support vector machine-a machine learning method that solves the two-class classification problem-is used to determine the line drop compensator (LDC) parameters instantly. To verify the validity of the proposed method, we carried out numerical simulations to determine the LDC parameters. From the simulated results, we found that the proposed method can instantly and accurately determine the LDC parameters.
Path and past dependence of firm innovation

This study examines persistence of product, process, and organizational innovations for a large sample of German firms over the time span from 2002 to 2008. Descriptive analyses using transition probability matrices show pronounced patterns of persistence for all three types of innovation. State dependence effects vanish for process and organizational innovations once we control for unobserved heterogeneity and endogenize initial conditions (Wooldridge approach). We conclude that product innovation processes exhibit significant path dependence; process and organizational innovations, in contrast, are primarily shaped by time-invariant and unobserved firm characteristics. In addition, we find evidence of intertemporal complementarities among the various innovation types.
An Examination of Vertical Equity Funding Policies in Urban Districts Within Elementary Schools

No Child Left Behind has brought with it political pressure on school and district personnel to increase student performance. This legislation has made individual school accountability a focus by attempting to mandate the reduction of the achievement gap between various groups of students. As a function of this pressure, more and more researchers and government officials have focused attention on various inequalities in resource allocation. One focal point has been the call to improve the equity within a district (intra-district) rather than spend more time and resources on equity issues between districts (inter-district). To that end, the weighted student funding (WSF) model for allocating school budgets has been considered by several authorities, both educational and political, as the answer to the question of equity. The goal of this dissertation is to evaluate the vertical equity of districts utilizing a weighted student funding model when compared to like districts in the same state. Some evidence from this dissertation reveals that when using regression models for school level expenditures, teacher quantity, and teacher quality measures, districts utilizing a weighted student funding mechanism may be more successful at enabling vertical equity than similar districts not using this funding model. Further evidence suggests that while districts utilizing a WSF mechanism may be targeting funds to schools, they may be doing so utilizing non-human resources. Based on the results, the dissertation concludes with a profile of districts that may enable more vertical equity than WSF districts when utilizing a funding mechanism other than weighted student funding.
HIV-Risk Behaviors Among Psychiatrically Hospitalized Adolescents With and Without Comorbid SUD

ABSTRACT Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine HIV-risk behaviors among a sample of psychiatric inpatient adolescents with and without comorbid SUD. Method: 239 adolescents (60.7% female; mean age = 15.3) were interviewed while hospitalized in a psychiatric inpatient treatment facility. Adolescents with and without substance use disorder (SUD) were compared on a number of HIV-risk behaviors and the association between HIV-risk behaviors and other types of mental health problems were examined. Results: Compared to those without SUD, adolescents with SUD, after controlling for age, gender, and other psychiatric disorders, were at an increased risk for being currently sexually active (AOR = 2.01, CI = 1.00–4.04, p < .05) and for having used alcohol or drugs prior to last sexual intercourse (AOR = 5.48, CI = 1.91–15.72, p < .01). HIV-risk behaviors were more evident among adolescents with externalizing disorders and those with higher levels of self-reported distress. Conclusion: Adolescents in psychiatric settings, especially those with substance use disorders and/or externalizing problems, are an important population for whom prevention efforts are needed to reduce the risk of HIV infection.
Posse de escravos e estrutura da riqueza no agreste e sertão de Pernambuco: 1777-1887

The article is a progress report on an on-going research program on slavery in the Brazilian Northeast. The characteristics of slave labor outside the coastal sugar zone of Pernambuco province are investigated. It is found that there were significant slave holdings in the cattle-raising, cotton-growing regions of the province, in the backlands, contrary to a commonly-held belief that those activities were not suited to be performed by slave labor. Slave holdings were generally small; and the demographic profile of the slave population was that expected of a labor force productively used by profit-maximizing slave-owners. The proportion of the value of slave holdings in total assets is surprisingly high, and does not tend to decrease after the sharp increase in slave prices in the second half of the nineteenth century. Those findings add to the increasing evidence, in the literature, on the importance of small slave holdings in Brazil.
The Fate of Russia's Former State Banks: Chronicle of a Restructuring Postponed and a Crisis Foretold

TRANSITION IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE has come a long way. One of the crucial components of a smoothly functioning market economy is an efficient and stable commercial banking system. In all countries of the former communist bloc reformers have been faced with the transformation of the inherited monobank system to a two-tier banking system with a central bank and commercial banks. The restructuring and privatisation of the existing state-owned bank institutions is one of the major challenges in this respect. It has been a long and painful process that remains incomplete in many countries. For Russia and some other former Soviet republics, the literature refers to the privatisation of the former specialised banks (spetsbanki) as a secessionist process that ensued without previous bank restructuring. The much needed restructuring of the former spetsbanki has been pending ever since. The number of former spetsbanki in financial trouble gradually increased, until a final blow was dealt by the August 1998 crisis. The main contribution of this article is the empirical analysis of the behaviour of spetsbanki descendants as a group. The descendants of the former spetsbanki appear to have higher labour costs, poorer loan quality, higher loan rates and marginally lower capital than other banks. This cannot be explained by initial conditions as we measure at a point in time at least 3–5 years after their creation. This shows that the spetsbanki were reluctant to restructure and helps to explain why most of them have since failed. The article starts with a descriptive analysis of the fate of large specialised banks (spetsbanki) in post-communist Russia. I then proceed with an empirical analysis that establishes new stylised facts common to all descendants of the former state banks, including the smaller ones that are less well-known. The final section summarises and concludes.
The demand for Canadian defence expenditures

This paper presents an analysis of the determinants of the demand for Canadian military expenditures through the estimation of a demand for defence expenditures model for the time period 1952-2001 using, among others, the auto-regressive distributed lag approach to cointegration (ARDL) to estimate and test cointegration and long run relationships. The findings suggest that Canadian defence spending is determined by NATO's (Europe) defence spending, that of the US to a lesser extent, relative price effects and opportunity cost considerations. In light of the fact that Canada's national, foreign and defence interests are tied to international organizations and bilateral arrangements, the results are not surprising.
Toward a Concrete Concept of Effective Competition

In presenting a concept of effective competition—that is, of a socially desirable state of affairs in an industry or a market—a writer should be specific about the issues, definite about his own views, explicit about necessary versus sufficient conditions, realistic about whether desirable conditions are attainable, discriminating in judging between a condition and its effects, comprehensive in listing market deficiencies, and stringent in describing his ideal. By this author's standards, a market is effectively competitive if and only if it is free of 25 flaws: unsatisfactory products, underuse or overuse, inefficient exchange, inefficient production, bad externalities, spoliation, exploitation, unfair tactics, wasteful advertising, irrationality, undue profits or losses, inadequate research, predation, pre-emption, tying arrangements, resale price maintenance, refusals to deal, undesirable discrimination, misallocation of risk, undesirable mergers, undesirable entry, misinformation, inefficient rules of trading, and misregulation.
An observational study of Yasmin® in the management of women with polycystic ovary syndrome

Background Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the commonest endocrine disturbance affecting women in the reproductive age group and encompasses signs of hyperandrogenism, menstrual cycle disturbances and obesity. Some of the symptoms of PCOS may be ameliorated by the combined oral contraceptive pill (COCP). Methods A pilot observational study was carried out in a university teaching hospital setting to determine whether the clinical and biochemical features of PCOS are ameliorated by a new COCP, Yasmin®, which contains a new progestogen, drosperinone. Treatment with Yasmin was given for 6 months to 17 patients. Results Thirteen patients (76%) completed 6 months of therapy. Good cycle control was achieved in all patients. Percentage body fat increased, with no overall change in body mass index. Fasting insulin and triglyceride concentrations rose significantly. Serum total testosterone concentrations fell with a concomitant rise in sex hormone binding globulin levels. Hirsutism scores did not change significantly in the 12 women who were clinically hirsute. There was, however, a significant improvement in the acne scores. Four of the 17 patients dropped out of the trial between Cycles 3 and 5 due to side effects. Conclusions Yasmin provides good cycle control for women with PCOS, with an improvement in acne over 6 months but not in other symptoms of the syndrome.