Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Concentrations of Levofloxacin, Ofloxacin, and Ciprofloxacin in Human Corneal Stromal Tissue and Aqueous Humor After Topical Administration

Objective: To evaluate the penetration of commercially available levofloxacin 0.5%, ofloxacin 0.3%, and ciprofloxacin 0.3% topical ophthalmic solutions in human corneal stromal and aqueous humor tissues. Methods: A total of 67 patients scheduled to undergo penetrating keratoplasty for treatment of stromal scar or dystrophy, keratoconus, pellucid marginal degeneration, or endothelial disease were enrolled in this prospective, double-blind, 3-center study. To be considered for inclusion, patients had to have an intact corneal epithelium and minimal or no corneal edema (pachymetry < 650 μm). After informed consent was obtained, patients were randomized to receive 1 drop of levofloxacin 0.5%, ofloxacin 0.3%, or ciprofloxacin 0.3% topical ophthalmic solution at approximately 15 and 10 minutes before surgery. Approximately 0.1 mL of aqueous fluid was aspirated by paracentesis through the trephination wound at the onset of surgery, followed by excision of the affected cornea and removal of its epithelium. Specimens were stored frozen at −70°C until assayed by high-performance liquid chromatography. Results: All 3 fluoroquinolones were well tolerated. A total of 65 corneas and 59 aqueous fluid samples were obtained and assayed. The mean ± standard deviation corneal concentrations of ciprofloxacin, ofloxacin, and levofloxacin following a 2-drop administration were 9.92 ± 10.99 μg/g (n = 18), 10.77 ± 5.90 μg/g (n = 23), and 18.23 ± 20.51 μg/g (n = 24), respectively. Although corneal stromal levels were highest in the levofloxacin group, the high degree of interpatient variability prevented demonstration of statistically significant differences when compared with ofloxacin (P = 0.377). In contrast, levofloxacin concentrations were approximately twice as high as ciprofloxacin, and this difference reached statistical significance (P = 0.014). The corresponding aqueous humor concentrations of ciprofloxacin, ofloxacin, and levofloxacin were 0.135 ± 0.231 μg/mL (n = 15), 0.135 ± 0.111 μg/mL (n = 20), and 0.372 ± 0.546 μg/mL (n = 24, P < 0.001 versus ciprofloxacin and ofloxacin). Conclusion: The topical administration of all 3 agents was well tolerated in patients undergoing penetrating keratoplasty. Two drops of levofloxacin 0.5% solution results in a 1.7- to 2.7-fold greater penetration into human corneal stromal and aqueous humor tissues than ofloxacin 0.3% or ciprofloxacin 0.3%. The mean intracorneal concentrations of all three agents following 2 drops exceeds the MIC90 for the majority of pathogens causing bacterial keratitis. Topical levofloxacin appears to offer pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic advantages over ofloxacin and ciprofloxacin in terms of enhanced transcorneal penetration; however, clinical comparative trials are needed to confirm these relative advantages.
Push it to the limit - Testing the usefulness of Extreme Value Theory in electricity markets

We set out to investigate whether the methodologies used in extreme value analysis are applicable in estimating Value at Risk (VaR) for the spot price returns of the European Energy Exchange (EEX). An initial inspection of hourly data reveals a volatile behaviour where returns of extreme proportions occur frequently. Applying the two traditional extreme value theory methods to the data, Block Maxima and Peaks Over Threshold, we find that while the latter perform better, it is highly sensitive to the chosen threshold and thereby the confidence level. Suspecting that spikes in the original data series might have distorted the estimated parameters and consequently the measures of VaR, we perform a similar analysis on daily data obtained through aggregating the hourly observations. Now we find a clear weekly dependence and an AR-GARCH-filtering approach suggested by McNeil and Frey (2000) is employed. Unfortunately, the risk measures based on daily data did not improve the overall picture as much as we had hoped, as they clearly still deviate from their theoretical values and could be rejected for most confidence levels. Backtesting the daily data did improve the results and we found that a conditional AR-GARCH-model outperformed an unconditional one, however only slightly. Our findings would thus suggest that the two classical extreme value methodologies can be used to model the extreme tails of the return distribution, but that they are not as accurate as found in other electricity markets. In order to increase the accuracy, one would need to constantly update the model parameters. Furthermore, we believe that more advanced modelling, taking spikes and mean reversion of the data into account, could lead to improvements.
Evidence on trade and wages in the developing world

This paper synthesizes nine in-depth developing country (LDC) studies on the impact of trade upon wages. It is traditionally assumed that in LDCs trade liberalization lowers relative wage dispersion, while raising wage dispersion in DCs. Evidence from cross-sectional household data for Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Chinese Taipei and Uruguay show: first, counter to one model in Leamer (1995), for countries with diversified trade, labor supply shifts generally shift wages. Second, liberalization was accompanied by rising relative wages and labor demand. And third, trade liberalization often increases the inflow of machinery, and may partly explain positive relative demand shifts accompanying trade liberalization . Ce document est une synthese de neuf etudes approfondies portant sur l’impact des echanges sur les salaires dans les pays en developpement. Il est couramment admis que la liberalisation des echanges reduit la dispersion relative des salaires dans les pays en developpement, alors qu’elle l’accentue dans les pays developpes. Les donnees sur les revenus des differentes categories de menages disponibles pour l’Argentine, le Chili, la Costa Rica, la Colombie, la Malaisie, le Mexique, les Philippines, le Taipei chinois et l’Uruguay montrent que : tout d’abord, contrairement au modele de Leamer (1995), dans les pays dont les echanges sont diversifies, tout changement dans la repartition de l’offre de travail va de pair avec un ajustement des salaires ; ensuite, la liberalisation a entraine une hausse des salaires relatifs et de la demande de main-d’oeuvre ; et enfin, la liberalisation des echanges provoque souvent une augmentation des achats de materiel, ce qui explique en partie .
Legislative Decision-Making in the European Union Before and After Enlargement: Explaining Network Ties in an International Legislature

This study examines cooperation networks in legislative decision-making in the European Union, and asks why certain pairs of member states cooperate more intensely than others. The analysis focuses on decision-making before and after the recent historic enlargements of the EU. Signaling theory and network theory provide the theoretical framework for this study. These theories make key propositions regarding the formation of political ties and have been applied to study politics in other political systems, notably the US Congress. Some variants of signaling theory posit that political actors are more likely to form a relationship if they have similar policy preferences. Signaling theory therefore explains variation in network ties with an individual-level variable. Network theory predicts that the likelihood of a tie between two actors depends on the presence of certain relationships with other actors. For instance, two actors are more likely to cooperate if they share many transitive linkages with other actors. Network theory therefore explains the occurrence of network ties among actors with characteristics of the network in which those actors are embedded. Our study integrates and analyzes two new datasets on legislative decision-making in the EU. The first dataset contains information on cooperation networks in the Council of Ministers, the most powerful legislative body in the EU. This dataset contains information on the presence of informal cooperation within each pair of member states in six different committees in the Council of Ministers (Coreper I and five working groups). The network data refer to three different time points: 2003, when the EU had 15 member states, 2006, when the EU had 25 member states, and 2009, when the EU had enlarged to 27 member states. The second dataset contains information on the policy positions of each of the member states on 331 controversial issues raised by 125 of the most important legislative proposals from the period 1999-2009. The preference data are used to construct measures of the similarity of member states’ preference profiles in the policy areas dealt with by relevant committees.
Research Note: Seasonality Patterns in Asian Tourism

Seasonality in tourism brings about difficulties for consumers, business operators and the settings in which they operate. Existing tourism seasonality literature focuses on European and North American cold climate examples, thus limiting the applicability to Asian and tropical settings. The objective of this paper is to develop a comprehensive approach to defining all types of seasonality in Asian tourism. This task is addressed by examining monthly arrivals at five key Asian destinations and the four top Chinese tourist areas. From the resulting 285 patterns of visitor movements, six types of pattern were identified in Asian tourism: the ‘rolling hills’, the ‘plain’, the ‘single-peak mountain’, the ‘multi-peak mountains’, the ‘basin’ and the ‘plateau’.
The mediating role of work engagement on the relationship between job involvement and affective commitment

This study examines job involvement and work engagement as predictors of affective commitment. Specifically, we test the proposal of Hallberg and Schaufeli (2006) that work engagement is a mediator of the relationship between job involvement and affective commitment using a survey of 405 Italian working adults. To test the model, mediation effects technique and structural equation modelling were applied to the collected data. Our hypothesis that work engagement fully mediates the relationship between job involvement and affective commitment was supported. This is the first study to demonstrate the importance of job involvement in promoting affective commitment via three dimensions of work engagement. We therefore assert that HR managers should direct their available resources to promoting job involvement and work engagement in their employees.
The Impact of Technological Convergence on Firms' Product Portfolio Strategy: An Information‐Based Imitation Approach

Technological convergence in the electronics industry has enabled disparate new functionalities to be added to existing basic products. Although the main drivers of technological convergence have been examined by the technological change literature, the impact of technological convergence on firms' product portfolio strategies remains a largely unexplored issue. Drawing on the technological change and information‐based imitation literatures, we develop hypotheses on how the introduction in the market of technologies from other product categories affects the way firms modify their product portfolio vis‐a‐vis the market leader. Data on nearly 300 imitation strategies at the product portfolio level, which cover over 3,500 handset models introduced by 55 mobile phone vendors from 1994 to 2010, show that the relationship between the level of technological convergence in a product category and the firms' level of imitation of the market leader product portfolio strategy is U‐shaped. Data also show that the firm's prior experience plays an important role in moderating this curvilinear relationship.
PENGARUH KOMITE AUDIT TERHADAP KUALITAS LABA

This research aims at examining the impact of audit committees on earnings quality. The study is motivated by the controversy of previous studies about performance of audit committee. Earnings quality is measured by Earnings Responsse Coefficient (ERC). Sample of the study consists of 97 manufacturing companies listed on the Jakarta Stock Exchange. Data is collected using purposive sampling method. The ERC is estimated using pooled cross-sectional coefficient method (CRSM) and firm specific coefficient method (FSCM) in the observation period of 2001-2002. The result using CRSM and FSCM shows that audit committee firms ERC’s were bigger than non audit committee firm ERC’s. These result showed that unexpected earnings of audit committee firms were responssed stronger than non audit committee firm because investor believe that noise of audit committee firms earnings were less than non audit committee firms. The result indicate that investors belive audit committees have done their responssibility to monitor financial reporting process.
Corporate mission, corporate policies and business outcomes: evidence from Japan

Purpose – This study sets out to explore questions such as: “Does mission statement matter? If so, in what ways? ” Using data on mission statements of 128 large Japanese firms, the paper aims to show that corporate mission has a significant impact on corporate policies that determine employment, board, and financial structures.Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides evidence that strong‐mission firms are more likely to retain incumbent employees, promote managers from within firms, and have less debt and a higher percentage of interlocking shareholdings than weak‐mission firms.Findings – The evidence supports the view that strong‐mission firms value their organizational capital and thus tend to adopt policies to preserve it. It also confirms that corporate mission and its embedded policies contribute to better corporate performance. The paper suggests that the effect of explicit corporate mission and its implementation has practical impacts in corporate policies and business outcomes.Research limi.
Internal Wage Structures and Organizational Performance

This paper considers whether a hierarchical or compressed wage structure is positively associated with relatively high levels of organizational performance. To date, there has been little empirical research in this area (especially in the UK). Thus we present an operational measure of a compressed/hierarchical wage structure, using UK manufacturing micro–data in five industrial sectors, and examine its relationship with labour productivity. We find that the wage compression argument holds in one sector but not for the majority of sectors and that taking into account other, intra–industry characteristics, namely size and ownership differences, further weakens the relationship.
Revenue implications of trade liberalization

The apparent contradiction between trade liberalization and continuing high trade tax revenue raises the important question of how, precisely, the one affects the other. Although policymakers generally recognize the long-term benefits of trade liberalization, some have argued for at least a slower pace, in part because of revenue concerns. This paper seeks to address these issues in three complimentary ways: through an overview of the factors that may have a bearing on the question, through a review of trends in trade tax revenue both globally and in selected countries, and through econometric analysis.
A common genetic variant as an effect modifier for primary angle closure glaucoma.

BACKGROUND Epidemiological studies provide evidence of a genetic basis for primary angle closure glaucoma (PACG), and genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified various candidate genes as susceptibility loci. However, different results produced by previous studies make the role of a common genetic variant in the COL11A1 gene (rs3753841) remains elusive. Thus, we carried out a meta-analysis, attempting to determine the association of rs3753841 with PACG. METHODS Potentially relevant studies were identified by systematical computer-based searches. Selection of eligible studies was undertaken by two investigators according to inclusion criteria. The DerSimonian and Laird's method was performed to estimate pooled odds ratios (risk of PACG) under distinct genetic models. Heterogeneity was measured using the chi-square-based Q statistic test and I(2) metric. RESULTS We found a significant association of COL11A1 rs3753841 with PACG among 26,365 subjects (5,594 cases and 20,771 controls) with Asian or Caucasian ancestry derived from a total of 15 studies. The association was more pronounced in individuals with the GG genotype (GG vs AA: odds ratio 1.26, 95% confidence interval 1.13-1.41; GG vs GA + AA: odds ratio 1.24, 95% confidence interval 1.12-1.38). In the stratified analyses, the statistical significance was retailed in Asians and the studies without Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. CONCLUSION Our meta-analysis including the large-scale study suggest that COL11A1 variant rs3753841 may confer higher susceptibility to PACG and provide additional insight into the mechanisms that underlie this most common subtype of glaucoma.
Positive feedback trading: evidence from futures markets

Shiller (1990) hypothesises that the positive feedback mechanism in financial markets may exhibit longer memory in the sense that feedback may operate over long time intervals. This paper tests the Shiller hypothesis using data from major index futures markets. The analysis is based on a modified dynamic capital asset pricing model that assumes two types of investors: 1 expected utility maximisers 2 positive feedback traders who sell during market declines and buy during market advances. According to the model, the interaction of the two groups induces negative time varying autocorrelation. There is some evidence of time-varying negative autocorrelation, consistent with the notion that some participants engage in positive feedback trading. Moreover, the feedback mechanism exhibits persistence in support of Shiller’s (1990) hypothesis.
Neighbourhood effects on young people’s future living conditions : longitudinal findings from Sweden

Brannstrom L. Neighbourhood effects on young people's future living conditions: longitudinal findings from Sweden Using extensive longitudinal data for three Swedish birth cohorts born in the late 1970s, this study asked whether the social characteristics of the neighbourhood affect future outcomes that are important for their living conditions (labour-market participation, economic hardship and criminality). To assist decision-making about the balance between area-targeted policies and wider form of social interventions at the individual level, this study also assessed whether the estimated impact of neighbourhood context has any bearing on the effect of preventive interventions directed at distressed neighbourhoods. The overall findings suggest that there is no clear evidence that the impact of neighbourhood varies sufficiently between the different types of neighbourhoods when selection and other confounding factors have been taken into consideration. It is concluded that the estimated effect of neighbourhood on youth development does not underpin area-targeted policies directed at distressed neighbourhoods.
Calcium channel blockers inhibit galvanotaxis in human keratinocytes

Directed migration of keratinocytes is essential for wound healing. The migration of human keratinocytes in vitro is strongly influenced by the presence of a physiological electric field and these cells migrate towards the negative pole of such a field (galvanotaxis). We have previously shown that the depletion of extracellular calcium blocks the directional migration of cultured human keratinocytes in an electric field (Fang et al., 1998 ; J Invest Dermatol 111:751–756). Here we further investigate the role of calcium influx on the directionality and migration speed of keratinocytes during electric field exposure with the use of Ca2+ channel blockers. A constant, physiological electric field strength of 100 mV/mm was imposed on the cultured cells for 1 h. To determine the role of calcium influx during galvanotaxis we tested the effects of the voltage‐dependent cation channel blockers, verapamil and amiloride, as well as the inorganic Ca2+ channel blockers, Ni2+ and Gd3+ and the Ca2+ substitute, Sr2+, on the speed and directionality of keratinocyte migration during galvanotaxis. Neither amiloride (10 μM) nor verapamil (10 μM) had any effect on the galvanotaxis response. Therefore, calcium influx through amiloride‐sensitive channels is not required for galvanotaxis, and membrane depolarization via K+ channel activity is also not required. In contrast, Sr2+ (5 mM), Ni2+ (1–5 mM), and Gd3+ (100 μM) all significantly inhibit the directional migratory response to some degree. While Sr2+ strongly inhibits directed migration, the cells exhibit nearly normal migration speeds. These findings suggest that calcium influx through Ca2+ channels is required for directed migration of keratinocytes during galvanotaxis and that directional migration and migration speed are probably controlled by separate mechanisms. J. Cell. Physiol. 193: 1–9, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Attitudinal Effects of Gender Mix in Union Committees

This study examines the impact of the gender mix of union committees in Israel on the attitudes and perceptions of committee members. The author finds that both male and female members of committees with a male majority were more likely than members of committees with a female majority to believe that men have greater leadership skills than women and that women are elected primarily to represent women rather than all workers. Also, in neither type of committee were men perceived to represent only men or did women rate their influence equal to that of men.
A process causality approach given a strategic frame

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a methodology for building a causality process to dynamically investigate system performance linkages, as implied by a strategic frame such as a quality management frame or the balance scorecard frame.Design/methodology/approach – The causality process develops aggregated process control tools in a data mining structure. The method identifies significant performance improvements by means of Cumulative Sum control charts, uses binary variables to mark them and time bounded search cycles as dictated by the causality constraints.Findings – The methodology was implemented in a manufacturing enterprise and thus enables to better understand causality at the operational (tactical) level as well as at the strategic level.Research limitations/implications – Additional research issues for further investigation are expressed by questions such as follows: what other data mining tools may be appropriate? How to methodically construct learning performance indicators? Pra.