Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Resection Arthroplasty for Resistant Ulcers Underlying the Hallux in Insensate Diabetics

Background: Foot ulcers carry considerable morbidity in patients with peripheral neuropathy and frequently lead to foot amputation. The purpose of this study was to present our experience treating recalcitrant ulcers underlying the hallux interphalangeal joint in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM)–related neuropathy with a first metatarsophalangeal (MTPJ1) resection arthroplasty. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the computerized medical files of patients with diabetic neuropathy treated with a MTPJ1 resection arthroplasty. We performed 28 arthroplasties on 20 patients with a mean age of 59 years. The patients had a diagnosis of DM for a mean of 10.7 years. Of the ulcers, 26 were grade 1A ulcers, and 2 were grade 2A ulcers (University of Texas score); the ulcer’s mean age was 5.4 months. The mean dorsiflexion of the hallux before surgery was 46 degrees. Results: The primary ulcer recovered in a mean of 3.1 weeks. Major complications (wound dehiscence and infection) occurred in 6 of 28 operations. Patients returned to normal activity 4 weeks after all procedures except in the 6 patients with dehiscence. In a subgroup of patients with follow-up longer than a year, the ulcer recurred after 4 of 18 arthroplasties (22%) between 3 and 12 months due to postoperative hallux rigidus. In the remaining 14 of 18 arthroplasties (78%), there was no recurrence during a mean follow-up of 26 months. Conclusion: MTPJ1 resection arthroplasty may be considered in a patient with resistant plantar hallux ulcerations, even in the absence of hallux rigidus. As with all operations on neuropathic feet in patients with DM, the surgeon and the patient should be aware that there is a significant likelihood of complications, but most are treatable. Level of Evidence: Level IV, case series.
Symbolic implementation of interior point method for linear programming problem

In this article we describe an implementation of the Mehrotra's primal–dual interior-point method in the package . Usage of ’s computer algebra system in our software is described. Both augmented and normal equation system approach are implemented. Described implementation is compared with main LP solvers. Algorithm for generating an efficient starting point as well as algorithm for the elimination of zero variables and the stabilization algorithm are incorporated in the developed code.
Population Change and its Effects on Public Spending:Cost Efficiency Behaviors of Swedish Municipalities on the Case of School Expenditures

The paper investigates the relationship between population changes and public spending. The main interest is hereby whether local governments can adjust their public spending in times of population decline. A Swedish case study is conducted on all 290 municipalities in regard to their comprehensive school expenses between 2005 and 2013. The theoretical framework incorporates economies of scale and cost stickiness and the methodology includes stochastic frontier analyses and log-annual change models accounting for fixed and variable costs. The paper applies advanced efficiency estimations in order to provide a benchmark analysis of the cost efficiency scores. As a result, the analysis draws a comprehensive picture on the causal effects of growing and declining populations in Swedish municipalities and finds that rural and peripheral regions – opposed to general expectations – are not necessarily the worst performers, but are able to adjust their public services according to their demographic shifts in the medium run.
Pathway of Glycine Betaine Biosynthesis in Aspergillus fumigatus

ABSTRACT The choline oxidase (CHOA) and betaine aldehyde dehydrogenase (BADH) genes identified in Aspergillus fumigatus are present as a cluster specific for fungal genomes. Biochemical and molecular analyses of this cluster showed that it has very specific biochemical and functional features that make it unique and different from its plant and bacterial homologs. A. fumigatus ChoAp catalyzed the oxidation of choline to glycine betaine with betaine aldehyde as an intermediate and reduced molecular oxygen to hydrogen peroxide using FAD as a cofactor. A. fumigatus Badhp oxidized betaine aldehyde to glycine betaine with reduction of NAD+ to NADH. Analysis of the AfchoAΔ::HPH and AfbadAΔ::HPH single mutants and the AfchoAΔAfbadAΔ::HPH double mutant showed that AfChoAp is essential for the use of choline as the sole nitrogen, carbon, or carbon and nitrogen source during the germination process. AfChoAp and AfBadAp were localized in the cytosol of germinating conidia and mycelia but were absent from resting conidia. Characterization of the mutant phenotypes showed that glycine betaine in A. fumigatus functions exclusively as a metabolic intermediate in the catabolism of choline and not as a stress protectant. This study in A. fumigatus is the first molecular, cellular, and biochemical characterization of the glycine betaine biosynthetic pathway in the fungal kingdom.
Highly Rechargeable Lithium-CO2 Batteries with a Boron- and Nitrogen-Codoped Holey-Graphene Cathode.

Metal-air batteries, especially Li-air batteries, have attracted significant research attention in the past decade. However, the electrochemical reactions between CO2 (0.04 % in ambient air) with Li anode may lead to the irreversible formation of insulating Li2 CO3 , making the battery less rechargeable. To make the Li-CO2 batteries usable under ambient conditions, it is critical to develop highly efficient catalysts for the CO2 reduction and evolution reactions and investigate the electrochemical behavior of Li-CO2 batteries. Here, we demonstrate a rechargeable Li-CO2 battery with a high reversibility by using B,N-codoped holey graphene as a highly efficient catalyst for CO2 reduction and evolution reactions. Benefiting from the unique porous holey nanostructure and high catalytic activity of the cathode, the as-prepared Li-CO2 batteries exhibit high reversibility, low polarization, excellent rate performance, and superior long-term cycling stability over 200 cycles at a high current density of 1.0 A g-1 . Our results open up new possibilities for the development of long-term Li-air batteries reusable under ambient conditions, and the utilization and storage of CO2 .
ONTARGET should not be over interpreted.

>60 ml/min/1.73 m 2 . The study drugs were discontinued in 23.7% (ramipril), 21.0% (telmisartan) and 29.4% (combined) of the patients, respectively. Symptomatic hypotension was documented more often in the combined group (406 vs. 149 in ramipril). The primary outcome of cardiovascular (CV) death, myocardial infarction (MI), stroke or hospitalization for heart failure occurred after 56 months in 16.5% (ramipril), in 16.7% (telmisartan) and in 16.3% (combined) in the three groups, respectively. The primary renal outcome of dialysis, a doubling of serum creatinine and all deaths was 13.5% (ramipril), 13.4% (telmisartan) and 14.5% (combined) in the three groups, respectively. Excluding the initial eGFR decline, which accounted for about 70% of the overall decline, the overall decrease in eGFR was −1.17 (ramipril), −2.06 (telmisartan) and −2.49 ml/min/1.73 m 2 (combined). The incidence of chronic dialysis (n = 98) was similar among the groups, although acute dialysis was more frequent in the combined group (28% vs.13% in the ramipril and 13.4% in the telmisartan group).
Corporate Governance and Equity Finance: An Emerging Economy Perspective

Purpose - – This paper aims to investigate whether firm-level corporate governance has an influence on the equity financing patterns in an emerging economy such as Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach - – The regression framework uses a questionnaire survey-based corporate governance index (CGI) comprising five dimensions – ownership structures, shareholder rights, independence and responsibilities of the board and management, financial reporting and disclosures and responsibility towards stakeholders. In addition, a number of semi-structured interviews have been carried out with the relevant stakeholders. Findings - – The results suggest a statistically significant positive relationship between CGI and equity capital and, thus, confirm the prediction of the agency theory. Research limitations/implications - – This study does not address endogeneity and reverse causality issues with respect to the relationship between CGI and equity finance. Practical implications - – Firms should improve their legal compliance and voluntary activism in corporate governance matters to ensure increased access to equity finance. Originality/value - – This study is among the first to examine the relationship between overall corporate governance quality and equity finance of a firm from the perspective of a bank-based emerging economy.
The impact of socially-accountable, community-engaged medical education on graduates in the Central Philippines: Implications for the global rural medical workforce

Abstract Introduction: Developing and retaining a high quality medical workforce, especially within low-resource countries has been a world-wide challenge exacerbated by a lack of medical schools, the maldistribution of doctors towards urban practice, health system inequities, and training doctors in tertiary centers rather than in rural communities. Aim: To describe the impact of socially-accountable health professional education on graduates; specifically: their motivation towards community-based service, preparation for addressing local priority health issues, career choices, and practice location. Methods: Cross-sectional survey of graduates from two medical schools in the Philippines: the University of Manila-School of Health Sciences (SHS-Palo) and a medical school with a more conventional curriculum. Results: SHS-Palo graduates had significantly (p < 0.05) more positive attitudes to community service. SHS-Palo graduates were also more likely to work in rural and remote areas (p < 0.001) either at district or provincial hospitals (p = 0.032) or in rural government health services (p < 0.001) as Municipal or Public Health Officers (p < 0.001). Graduates also stayed longer in both their first medical position (p = 0.028) and their current position (p < 0.001). Conclusions: SHS-Palo medical graduates fulfilled a key aim of their socially-accountable institution to develop a health professional workforce willing and able, and have a commitment to work in underserved rural communties.
A Combinatorial Optimization for Energy-Efficient Mobile Cloud Offloading over Cellular Networks

Recently, mobile cloud offloading is a promising technique to deal with the increasingly complex applications on mobile devices, meeting the ever- increasing energy requirements. However, cloud offloading with multiple mobile devices may cause considerable mutual interference, which may result in intolerable time delay and more energy consumption. In this paper, a novel offloading decision method is investigated to minimize the total energy consumption of mobile devices over cellular networks. Generally, mobile devices can execute a sequence of tasks in parallel with different characteristics, i.e., communication- intensive and computation-intensive. And recent advances show that only computation-intensive tasks are applicable to be offloaded for energy saving. The offloading decision issue is formulated as a NP- hard combinatorial optimization problem with the time deadline and communication quality constraints. Combining the problem linearization method and decision variables mapping from integer to the real domain, a rapid and efficient iterative approximation method is proposed, helping the cloud controller to select the best tasks for offloading aiming at minimizing the total energy consumption. Numerical simulation demonstrates that considerable energy can be saved with the proposed task offloading method in mobile cloud scenarios.
Floating Population or Urban Citizens? Status, Social Provision and Circumstances of Rural–Urban Migrants in China

This article uses semi-structured in-depth interviews with rural–urban migrants in Tianjin to look at the personal circumstances of such migrants in China. The interviews suggest that, unlike their predecessors in previous years, many rural–urban migrants now come with the intention of settling down. While there have been major policy changes in the last five years, these migrants are still, in many respects, not integrated into urban society. Meeting these challenges would require further changes in urban policies and urban society, taking account of the needs and interests of rural–urban migrants.
Adoptive immunotherapy against sarcomas

Introduction: Conventional treatments reached an unsatisfactory therapeutic plateau in the treatment of advanced unresectable bone and soft tissue sarcomas that remain an unsolved medical need. Several evidences support the concept that adoptive immunotherapy may effectively integrate within the complex and multidisciplinary treatment of sarcomas. Areas covered: In this work we reviewed adoptive immunotherapy strategies that have been explored in sarcoma settings, with specific focus on issues related to their clinic transferability. We schematically divided approaches based on T lymphocytes specific for MHC-restricted tumor-associated antigens or relying on MHC-independent immune effectors such as natural killer (NK), cytokine-induced killer (CIK) or γδ T cells. Expert opinion: Preclinical findings and initial clinical reports showed the potentialities and drawbacks of different adoptive immunotherapy strategies. The expansion of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes is difficult to be reproduced outside melanoma. Genetically redirected T cells appear to be a promising option and initial reports are encouraging against patients with sarcomas. Adoptive immunotherapy with MHC-unrestricted effectors such as NK, CIK or γδ T cells has recently shown great preclinical potential in sarcoma setting and biologic features that may favor clinical transferability. Combination of different immunotherapy approaches and integration with conventional treatments appear to be key issues for successful designing of next clinical trials.
Exact multivariate tests for brain imaging data

In positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data sets, the number of variables is larger than the number of observations. This fact makes application of multivariate linear model analysis difficult, except if a reduction of the data matrix dimension is performed prior to the analysis. The reduced data set, however, will in general not be normally distributed and therefore, the usual multivariate tests will not be necessarily applicable. This problem has not been adequately discussed in the literature concerning multivariate linear analysis of brain imaging data. No theoretical foundation has been given to support that the null distributions of the tests are as claimed. Our study addresses this issue by introducing a method of constructing test statistics that follow the same distributions as when the data matrix is normally distributed. The method is based on the invariance of certain tests over a large class of distributions of the data matrix. This implies that the method is very general and can be applied for different reductions of the data matrix. As an illustration we apply a test statistic constructed by the method now presented to test a multivariate hypothesis on a PET data set. The test rejects the null hypothesis of no significant differences in measured brain activity between two conditions. The effect responsible for the rejection of the hypothesis is characterized using canonical variate analysis (CVA) and compared with the result obtained by using univariate regression analysis for each voxel and statistical inference based on size of activations. The results obtained from CVA and the univariate method are similar. Hum. Brain Mapping 16:24–35, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Capital Gains Taxation and Shareholder Wealth in Takeovers

Before December 1999, the capital gains of shareholders who sold their shares into Australian takeovers have been taxable irrespective of payment method. Subsequently, shareholders can elect to rollover capital gains in equity takeovers. We examine the effect of this change on the association between target shareholder capital gains and bidder and target firm shareholder wealth. The results indicate that prior to the regulatory change, cash consideration results in higher target shareholder returns for non-taxation reasons. After the introduction of capital gains tax rollover relief, we find that target and acquiring firm shareholders earn lower returns when cash consideration is offered to shareholders with greater capital gains.
Private information : an argument for a fixed exchange rate system

In a two-country model, the paper considers reputational equilibria for monetary policies in the case where the central banks have some private information. It is shown that a fixed exchange rate system may lead, in both countries, to lower inflation biases than a flexible exchange rate system. No exogenous costs (like "political costs") of leaving the fixed exchange rate system are required for such a result to hold. The reason is that private information makes a money supply rule more difficult to sustain through reputational forces than an exchange rate rule.
Catecholamine neurons alteration in the brainstem of sudden infant death syndrome victims.

BACKGROUND Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is a leading cause of postneonatal infant death. The pathogenesis of sudden death is still unknown, but an abnormality in the central nervous regulation of breathing during sleep has been suggested. OBJECTIVE The aim of study is to confirm the brainstem disorder of SIDS victims. In order to do this, it is necessary to investigate the alterations of brain neurotransmitter systems thought to be involved in respiratory control. DESIGN Neuropathologic study performed on the brainstem of SIDS victims. SUBJECT/METHODS The disorders of catecholaminergic systems in 22 SIDS victims were examined on the substantia nigra in the midbrain, locus coeruleus in the pons, vagal nuclei, and area reticularis superficialis ventrolateralis with the immunohistochemical method. Immunoperoxidase staining was performed with the antityrosine hydroxylase (TH) and the glial fibrillary acidic protein antibodies. Immunoreactivity was compared with 13 age-matched control infants. For statistical analysis, the chi 2 test and the Student's t test were performed. RESULTS The main finding was diminished TH immunoreactivity in the vagal nuclei and area reticularis superficialis ventrolateralis of SIDS victims, suggesting that adrenaline and noradrenaline neurons are altered in SIDS. In addition, this decrease in TH was closely correlated with brainstem gliosis. CONCLUSION These catecholaminergic changes may be caused by chronic hypoxia or ischemia, and also may underlie alterations in respiratory and cardiovascular control in sleep.
Estimation of Distance-Decay Functions to Account for Substitution and Spatial Heterogeneity in Stated Preference Research

In a site-selection choice experiment various hypotheses are tested related to spatial heterogeneity in willingness to pay (WTP) for environmental improvements. Spatial heterogeneity is measured through distance-decay effects, substitute sites inside and outside the experiment’s choice set, and spatial trend variables. We demonstrate that distance-decay functions differ between users and nonusers and across study sites. Also the distance to substitutes outside the choice set explains spatial variation in WTP. We show that further extending the model with spatial trend variables reveals additional spatial heterogeneity in choices. Accounting for spatial heterogeneity patterns results in significantly different WTP estimates for environmental improvements. (JEL Q25, Q51)
A DEA approach for measuring university departments’ efficiency

This paper uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) in order to determine the performance levels of 16 departments of a public owned university. Particularly, the constant returns to scale (CRS) and variable returns to scale (VRS) models have been applied alongside with bootstrap techniques in order to determine accurate performance estimates. The study illustrates how the recent developments in efficiency analysis and statistical inference can be applied when evaluating institutional performance issues. The results reveal the existence of misallocation of resources or/and inefficient application of departments’ policy development.
Surgical management of Boerhaave's syndrome in a tertiary oesophagogastric centre.

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study was to review the management and outcome of patients with Boerhaave's syndrome in a specialist centre between 2000-2007. PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients were grouped according to time from symptoms to referral (early, < 24 h; late, > 24 h). The effects of referral time and management on outcomes (oesophageal leak, reoperation and mortality) were evaluated. RESULTS Of 21 patients (early 10; late 11), three were unfit for surgery. Of the remaining 18, immediate surgery was performed in 8/8 referred early and 6/10 referred late. Four patients referred late were treated conservatively. Oesophageal leak (78% versus 12.5%; P < 0.05) and mortality (40% versus 0%; P < 0.05) rates were higher in patients referred late. For patients referred late, mortality was higher in patients managed conservatively (75% versus 17%; not significant). CONCLUSIONS The best outcomes in Boerhaave's syndrome are associated with early referral and surgical management in a specialist centre. Surgery appears to be superior to conservative treatment for patients referred late.
Understanding Small Business Taxpayers

This study investigates how the self-employed define themselves and their businesses in relation to taxation issues, and whether there is evidence that this segment engages with taxation in ways that are different from other segments of the population. Data are collected from a random sample of 2040 Australians. Four domains are chosen for comparison: perceived deterrence for non-compliance, tax morale, perceived fairness, and work practice. As evident in the discriminant function analysis, the self-employed are distinguished by not receiving an annual tax refund, perceiving themselves as paying less than their fair share of tax, having less tax competence and independence, perceiving greater power in the tax office to elicit compliance, favouring small government and minimum government interference, and opposing tax expenditure for redistributive programmes such as health, welfare and education. Findings are discussed in a regulatory context.
Investors' Reactions to Management Guidance Forms: The Influence of Multiple Benchmarks

In this study, we investigate underlying mechanisms for the effects of management guidance forms on investors' judgments. We do so by comparing effects of point and range guidance with those associated with a hybrid management guidance form that combines the attributes of both point and range guidance. With respect to investors' earnings reestimates made after actual earnings announcements, we find that both the number and type of benchmarks associated with the guidance forms matter. High‐knowledge investors use both primary (explicitly stated) and secondary (implicitly stated) benchmarks, whereas low‐knowledge investors attend only to primary benchmarks. We also find that investors have greater confidence in their earnings estimates when management guidance explicitly provides best estimates.