Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Professionalisation and Commercialisation of Football in China (1993–2013)

The professionalisation and commercialisation of football in China began in 1993, followed in 1994 by the launch of a league system that was modelled on the systems of Western countries. With the support of the market, football began to become self-sufficient and no longer reliant on government support. State-owned football clubs were replaced by an increasing number of privately owned and collectively owned clubs. Athletes started to play football for their own sakes, pursuing fortune, honour and personal excellence. However, the reform did not touch the most fundamental part of the Chinese sport system as the football league authority was still under the tight control of the government. The Chinese Football Association (CFA), the governing body of the league, is not an independent governing body and, for a long time, football clubs were not involved in high-level policy and decision-making. The football league faced a crisis in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when a series of match fixing scandals turned football fans' passion into resentment. The Sports Ministry launched a package of new reforms in the mid-2000s in an attempt to fix the league's problems. These reforms included anti-gambling and anti-corruption campaigns and introduced a degree of power sharing between the clubs and the CFA. However, further structural changes to government and governance are required for the future of Chinese football.
The Effect of Reputation on Selling Prices in Auctions

Summary It is often argued in economics that building a reputation for trustworthiness could help individuals or firms to mitigate or even overcome problems of contractual incompleteness. In this paper, we use data from the German eBay website to test whether a seller’s bad reputation has an effect on selling prices. For auctions of popular DVDs at eBay we do indeed find evidence for this hypothesis. We show that an increase in the share of negative ratings of one percentage point decreases the selling price by about 4 per cent. The number of negative ratings, in contrast, does not affect the selling price significantly. Hence, bidders on the eBay marketplace seem to concentrate on relative rather than on absolute measures of reputation. Further, we challenge the recommendation that it is profitable for eBay sellers to let their auction end in the evening, when many potential buyers are supposed to be online. We find that prices are relatively lower in the evening. This may be due to a much higher supply of DVDs in the evening.
Hemodynamic effects of basal and stimulated release of endogenous nitric oxide in isolated human lungs.

Background-We compared the hemodynamic responses to inhibition or stimulation of endothelial nitric oxide (NO) release of isolated explanted lungs from transplantation recipients with pulmonary hypertension and in normotensive unallocated donor lungs. Methods and Results-Lungs from 10 patients with severe pulmonary hypertension (SPH) and from 16 patients with severe chronic obstructive lung disease (COLD) were studied. Fourteen normotensive lungs were studied as controls. The lungs were perfused at a constant flow. In protocol 1 N(G)-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester caused a similar rise in baseline pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) that was similar in SPH (+17.1+/-4.2 mm Hg; n=5), COLD (+15.5+/-4.8 mm Hg; n=8), and control lungs (+14.5+/-1.5 mm Hg; n=7). Arterial occlusion demonstrated that most of the changes with N(G)-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester were precapillary. The response to sodium nitroprusside (10(-8) to 10(-4) mol/L) was similar in all groups. In protocol 2, the lungs were preconstricted, and acetylcholine (10(-9) to 10(-5) mol/L) caused a lesser fall in PAP in both COLD and SPH lungs compared with control (-41.9+/-8.6%, -55. 7+/-7.6%, and -73.2+/-2.5%, respectively; P<0.05), whereas sodium nitroprusside (10(-5) mol/L) decreased PAP to initial levels in all lungs. Conclusions-Stimulated release of NO is impaired in arteries of lungs with plexogenic or hypoxemic pulmonary hypertension. In contrast, basal release of NO appears to be maintained.
Uniform polyphase filter banks for use in hearing aids: Design and constraints

Signal processing in hearing aids for purposes such as hearing loss compensation or noise reduction requires transforming the input signal into frequency bands. Additional audiological constraints need to be considered to accurately model the hearing loss compensation as well as to prevent unintended artefacts. This necessitates highly efficient solutions with low delay, strong alias suppression and sufficient frequency resolution. After discussing requirements from several aspects, we show how uniform polyphase filter banks can be designed to meet these requirements. One important topic is a prototype filter design, for which we present numerically optimized solutions. Finally, we show results for quantized filter coefficients.
Children's Peer Relationships: Longitudinal Prediction of Internalizing and Externalizing Problems from Middle to Late Childhood.

In this longitudinal study, the predictive relations between social difficulties in early childhood (grade 2) and subsequent internalizing as well as externalizing problems in middle childhood (grade 5) were examined. Of particular interest was whether early indices of social isolation would predict internalizing problems 3 years later. A longitudinal sample of 87 children were assessed in both grades 2 and 5 on a variety of measures, including sociometric ratings, peer assessments of aggression and isolation, and self-appraisals of social competence. In the second grade, observations of isolated and aggressive behavior were made, as well, and teacher ratings of internalizing and externalizing difficulties were obtained. In the fifth grade, teacher ratings of shy-anxious and acting-out behavior and self-reports of loneliness and self-esteem were collected. Consistent with previous research, results demonstrated predictive links between early peer rejection (unpopularity) and aggression and subsequent externalizing difficulties. Internalizing problems in middle childhood were significantly related to early social difficulties, particularly those of an internalizing sort, including poor peer acceptance, social isolation, and perceptions of social incompetence. Social isolation, then, may indeed be a risk factor in early development.
Determinants of Emergency Room Visits for Psychological Problems in a General Hospital

Determinants of emergency room visits for psychological reasons were studied pro spectively for a four month period in an Indian General Hospital. Psychiatric emergen cies constituted only 2% of all emergency visits. Most of the patients were new except for 7.4% who were already registered with the outpatient services of the psychiatry department. Males outnumbered females in a ratio of 2:1. Self-referrals constituted 77% of the samples; 21 % of patients were brought by police. Two-thirds of the patients were brought owing to the severity of their clinical condition and the rest, one-third, for medico-legal and social reasons. Approximately 80% of the patients sought con sultation within one month of the onset of illness episode. First episode of mental illness was within last one year of the emergency room visit in 60% patients. Past history of hospitalization for mental illness was obtained only in 10% of cases. The pattern suggested that there was no misuse of emergency services by psychiatric patients although 20% of the patients presented with social problems only which required social rather than psychiatric intervention.
Morphological Awareness Skills of English Language Learners and Children With Dyslexia

The purpose of this study was to examine the relation of morphological awareness to reading and spelling skills of children with dyslexia, children who are typical readers, and children who are English language learners (ELLs). Morphological awareness was defined by sensitivity to derivational morphemes, for example, ness, signifying a noun, ize, signifying a verb. The participants were 1,238 students in Grade 6, including 309 ELL students and 929 students who had English as a first language (L1). Morphological awareness was significantly related to reading and spelling over and above the contribution of phonological awareness and oral language skills. Individuals with dyslexia had significantly lower scores than normally achieving readers on the morphological awareness tasks. No differences were reported between the ELL and the English L1 students. All students were less sensitive to derivational morphology when they were required to recognize the appropriate endings on pseudowords, which required a higher level of morphological awareness than real words. Lack of morphological awareness may be a significant contributor to the deficits in reading and spelling characteristic of dyslexic readers and spellers. These results suggest that morphological awareness assessment and training should be administered in children with reading difficulties.
Improved Left Ventricular Structure and Function After Successful Kidney Transplantation

Background/Aims: Cardiac changes observed in chronic kidney disease patients are of multifactorial origin including chronic uremia, hemodynamics or inflammation. Restoration of renal function by kidney transplantation (KTX) may reverse cardiac changes. Novel echocardiographic methods such as speckle tracking echocardiography (STE) allow early and sensitive detection of subtle changes of cardiac parameters. We evaluated changes of cardiac structure and function after KTX by advanced echocardiographic modalities. Methods: Thirty-one KTX recipients (female n=11) were evaluated by medical examination, laboratory testing and echocardiography before and after KTX (median follow-up 19 months). Left ventricular (LV) and right ventricular (RV) diameters and function were assessed by echocardiographic standard parameters. Longitudinal 2D strain of the LV (GLPS) and left atrium (LA) was determined by 2D STE. Results: After KTX, median serum creatinine level was 1.3 mg/dl (IQR, 1.2-1.5). Systolic blood pressure decreased significantly after KTX. Echocardiography showed a significant reduction in LV end-diastolic septal and posterior wall thickness and LV mass index after KTX, which was accompanied by an improvement of GLPS. There were no relevant changes in parameters of LA (reservoir, conduit or contractile) function, LV diastolic or RV function after KTX. Conclusion: LV hypertrophy reversed after successful KTX and was accompanied by an improvement in longitudinal LV function as assessed by STE. Diastolic function and STE-derived LA function parameters did not change significantly after KTX.
Why do local governments privatise public services? A survey of empirical studies

Abstract Many empirical works have been devoted to analysing the factors explaining local privatisation. Overall, most of the empirical analyses have low explanatory power due to the methodological difficulties in capturing the dynamic nature of the privatisation decision. The variables most often considered are those related to fiscal stress and cost reduction and political processes and ideological attitudes. Our review indicates that fiscal stress and pressure from interest group are explanatory factors of local privatisation in those early studies devoted to the US that consider a broad range of services. Furthermore, cost considerations seem to be taken into account by local governments, particularly when scale economies and transaction costs are taken together. Finally, ideological attitudes of policy makers do not seem to influence local service delivery choices in any systematic way.
The Effect of Board Characteristics on Firm Environmental Performance

This study investigates the relationship between strong firm environmental performance and board characteristics that capture boards’ monitoring and resource provision abilities during an era when the natural environment and the related strategic opportunities have increased in importance. The authors relate the proxy for strong environmental performance to board characteristics that represent boards’ monitoring role (i.e., independence, CEO-chair duality, concentration of directors appointed after the CEO, and director shareholding) and resource provision role (i.e., board size, directors on multiple boards, CEOs of other firms on the board, lawyers on the board, and director tenure). The authors provide evidence consistent with both theories of board roles. Specifically, consistent with their agency theory–driven predictions, the authors find evidence of higher environmental performance in firms with higher board independence and lower concentration of directors appointed after the CEO on the board of directors. Consistent with resource dependence theory, they show that environmental performance is higher in firms that have larger boards, larger representation of active CEOs on the board, and more legal experts on the board. Their findings are generally robust to a number of sensitivity analyses. These findings have implications for managers, firms, shareholders, and regulators who act on behalf of shareholders, if they are interested in influencing environmental performance.
The effect of inhibitory feedback on temporal regularity in neural networks

The regularity of the spiking activity is closely related to the neural encoding and transmission of neural information. However, it is largely unknown how the inhibitory feedback, as a common interaction existed in cortex, contributes to the precise transmission of neural information. In order to explore the answer to this question, we construct a feed-forward network (FFN) model with lateral inhibitory circuits and study the effect of inhibitory feedback on the temporal regularity of spiking activities. Besides, we discuss the spike-time regularity of pure FFN model without feedback for selecting typical dynamic states of neural network. Results show that the inhibitory feedback with adaptive strength enhance the regularity of spike-time in typical states. It indicates that the spike-time regularity observed in the experiment is resulted by the interaction between feed-forward and inhibitory feedback.
Cell-surface translational dynamics of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors

Synapse efficacy heavily relies on the number of neurotransmitter receptors available at a given time. In addition to the equilibrium between the biosynthetic production, exocytic delivery and recycling of receptors on the one hand, and the endocytic internalization on the other, lateral diffusion and clustering of receptors at the cell membrane play key roles in determining the amount of active receptors at the synapse. Mobile receptors traffic between reservoir compartments and the synapse by thermally driven Brownian motion, and become immobilized at the peri-synaptic region or the synapse by: (a) clustering mediated by homotropic inter-molecular receptor–receptor associations; (b) heterotropic associations with non-receptor scaffolding proteins or the subjacent cytoskeletal meshwork, leading to diffusional “trapping,” and (c) protein-lipid interactions, particularly with the neutral lipid cholesterol. This review assesses the contribution of some of these mechanisms to the supramolecular organization and dynamics of the paradigm neurotransmitter receptor of muscle and neuronal cells -the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR). Currently available information stemming from various complementary biophysical techniques commonly used to interrogate the dynamics of cell-surface components is critically discussed. The translational mobility of nAChRs at the cell surface differs between muscle and neuronal receptors in terms of diffusion coefficients and residence intervals at the synapse, which cover an ample range of time regimes. A peculiar feature of brain α7 nAChR is its ability to spend much of its time confined peri-synaptically, vicinal to glutamatergic (excitatory) and GABAergic (inhibitory) synapses. An important function of the α7 nAChR may thus be visiting the territories of other neurotransmitter receptors, differentially regulating the dynamic equilibrium between excitation and inhibition, depending on its residence time in each domain.
MMPI profile characteristics of women with varying levels of normal dissociation.

MMPI-2 correlates of normal dissociation as measured by the absorption subscale items of the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) were examined in patients with diagnoses in the dissociative spectrum (n = 119) and not in the dissociative spectrum (n = 97). All patients completed the MMPI-2 and DES and were assigned to subgroups based on a cut-off score of 30 on normal dissociation. Results indicated that normal dissociation was unusually prominent among patients with mental disorders. The MMPI profiles of those with high imbalances of normal dissociation were skewed in the direction of more pathology across a broad range of mental symptoms. This was true for both dissociative and nondissociative patients. These findings provide preliminary evidence that high imbalances in normal dissociation may be related to psychopathology of a general nature.
Simvastatin inhibits smoke-induced airway epithelial injury: implications for COPD therapy

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the third leading cause of death. The statin drugs may have therapeutic potential in respiratory diseases such as COPD, but whether they prevent bronchial epithelial injury is unknown. We hypothesised that simvastatin attenuates acute tobacco smoke-induced neutrophilic lung inflammation and airway epithelial injury. Spontaneously hypertensive rats were given simvastatin (20 mg·kg−1 i.p.) daily for either 7 days prior to tobacco smoke exposure and during 3 days of smoke exposure, or only during tobacco smoke exposure. Pretreatment with simvastatin prior to and continued throughout smoke exposure reduced the total influx of leukocytes, neutrophils and macrophages into the lung and airways. Simvastatin attenuated tobacco smoke-induced cellular infiltration into lung parenchymal and airway subepithelial and interstitial spaces. 1 week of simvastatin pretreatment almost completely prevented smoke-induced denudation of the airway epithelial layer, while simvastatin given only concurrently with the smoke exposure had no effect. Simvastatin may be a novel adjunctive therapy for smoke-induced lung diseases, such as COPD. Given the need for statin pretreatment there may be a critical process of conditioning that is necessary for statins’ anti-inflammatory effects. Future work is needed to elucidate the mechanisms of this statin protective effect.
Manual Activity During Speaking in Aphasic Subjects

Samples of free conversations were recorded in 6 normal and 12 aphasic subjects. Manual activity during speech was observed. Groups were shown to behave in an opposite way for the verbal and nonverbal measures: while aphasic subjects' verbal behavior is impaired, they produce more speech-related movements than normals. No differences appear concerning other movements (automanipulation, hand-to-hand posture, miscellaneous movements). Analysis of the aphasie group reveals no difference between the fluent and the nonfluent aphasies. Verbal fluency is shown to be a non-critical factor in the explanation of gesture production. Increased gestural production in aphasies may be interpreted according to the hypothesis that gestures are cues for the difficulties the speaker experiences in the verbal encoding process. On a recueilli des echantillons de conversation spontanee chez six sujets normaux et douze aphasiques. L'activite manuelle accompagnant la parole a ete analysee. Les groupes different en sens oppose selon les mesures, verbales ou non-verbales: perturbes dans leur comportement verbal, les aphasiques produisent plus de gestes que les sujets normaux. Aucune difference ne se manifeste en ce qui concerne les autres mouvements (automanipulation du visage, des mains et mouvements divers). L'analyse du groupe aphasique ne montre aucune difference entre les aphasiques fluents et non-fluents. La fluidite verbale ne parait donc pas constituer le facteur essentiel dans l'explication de la production gestuelle. L'augmentation de la gesticulation chez les aphasiques peut etre interpretee dans le cadre de l'hypothese selon laquelle les gestes sont des indices des difficultes que le locuteur eprouve dans les processus d'encodage verbal.
Effects of exercise modality on insulin resistance and functional limitation in older adults: a randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND Authorities advocate that resistance and aerobic exercise are essential for reducing risk factors for chronic disease and disability in older adults. However, the incremental effects of combined resistance and aerobic exercise compared with either modality alone on risk factors for disease and disability is generally unknown. METHODS Participants were 136 sedentary, abdominally obese older men and women recruited from September 30, 2002, through November 15, 2006, at Queen's University. Participants were randomized to 1 of the following 4 groups for 6 months: resistance exercise, aerobic exercise, resistance and aerobic exercise (combined exercise), or nonexercise control. Primary outcomes were analyzed by an intent-to-treat model and included changes in insulin resistance by hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp and functional limitation using the average change in 4 tests combined (average z score). RESULTS After controlling for age, sex, and baseline value, insulin resistance improved compared with controls in the aerobic exercise and the combined exercise groups but not in the resistance exercise group. Improvement (mean [SE]) in the combined exercise group was greater than in the resistance exercise group (9.2 [1.3] vs 1.8 [1.3] mg/mL/microIU per kilogram of skeletal muscle per minute x100 [P < .001]) but not in the aerobic exercise group (9.2 [1.3] vs 6.5 [1.3] mg/mL/microIU per kilogram of skeletal muscle per minute x100 [P = .46]). Functional limitation improved significantly in all groups compared with the control group. Improvement in the combined exercise group was greater than in the aerobic exercise group (0.5 [0.1] vs -0.0 [0.1]; standard units, z score [P = .003]) but not in the resistance exercise group. Improvement in the resistance exercise group was not different from the aerobic exercise group. CONCLUSION The combination of resistance and aerobic exercise was the optimal exercise strategy for simultaneous reduction in insulin resistance and functional limitation in previously sedentary, abdominally obese older adults. TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00520858.
Elevated Resting Heart Rate as a Predictor of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder After Severe Traumatic Brain Injury

Objective: This study indexed the relationship between resting heart rates (HRs) after injury and subsequent posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in patients who sustained severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Methods: Patients who sustained a severe TBI (N = 68) had their resting HR assessed 1 week and 1 month after injury, and they were assessed for PTSD 6 months after injury with the PTSD Interview, a structured clinical interview based on the criteria of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 3rd Edition, Revised. Results: PTSD was diagnosed in 23% of patients. PTSD participants had higher HRs at 1 week but not at 1 month after trauma than non-PTSD participants. This difference remained significant when the effect of posttraumatic amnesia was controlled, but it was not significant when the effect of Glasgow Coma Scale was controlled. Conclusion: These findings accord with the proposal that fear conditioning can occur outside the level of awareness and contribute to PTSD development. PTSD = posttraumatic stress disorder; HR = heart rate; TBI = traumatic brain injury; PTA = posttraumatic amnesia; GCS = Glasgow Coma Scale; PTSD-I = Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Interview; SD = standard deviation.