Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cash-based Responses in Emergencies

Assistance to people in emergencies can sometimes be appropriately provided in the form of cash, enabling people to decide for themselves what they most need and to buy it in local markets. The debate around the appropriate use of cash in emergencies has often been framed, as it is here, as one between cash and food. It is important to remember that cash is not just an alternative to food aid but to all forms of in-kind assistance. However, as food aid often dominates humanitarian responses, deciding when cash is appropriate as an alternative or complement to food aid is clearly important.
How high is the social rate of return to investment

Does the social rate of return to physical investment exceed the private rate to an economically significant extent? In particular, is the return to investment in plant and machinery very high? We address this question by estimating a number of different models employing cross-section, time series and panel methods on data from the Penn World Table. The balance of the evidence suggests the answer to these two questions is no, particularly for the currently rich countries. The estimated elasticity of output with respect to capital seems roughly equal to capital's share and the estimated social rate of return is in line with estimates of the private rate. Copyright 1996 by Oxford University Press.
Human Parvovirus B19 and Blood Products

Background and objectives: Human B19 parvovirus (B19), identified in 1975, was only recognised as the causative agent of fifth disease in 1983. The incidence of viraemia is low, around 1 in 1,000, but is sufficient to ensure that most plasma pools for fractionation contain some virus. While infection usually occurs in childhood and is benign, chronic infection sometimes occurs and may be of concern in certain patient groups. Materials and methods: This review is based on a meeting held in March 1995, and addresses recent concerns regarding the potential transmission of B19 infection by pooled plasma products. Results: Recent data on the pathophysiology and assay of this virus are summarised along with possible approaches to donor screening, product screening, and virus removal. Only five cases of symptomatic infection have been reported in persons with haemophilia, but no technology for virus removal is established, and infection may be of concern in pregnant women, and in patients with enhanced red cell turnover or who are immunosuppressed, including those infected with human immunodeficiency virus, but only rarely in immunocompetent patients. Conclusions: For the future, well‐validated assays relevant to virus infectivity are required if blood donations, plasma pools, or plasma products are to be screened, and an in‐process virus inactivation step for B19 would be highly desirable. In the interim, non‐plasma or recombinant products or a selective transfusion policy might be used in patient groups in which B19 infection is of particular concern. Further clinical data on the prognosis and impact of B19 infection are needed to justify both such policies and the future adoption of new technologies designed to reduce any excess B19 infectivity arising from transfused products.
Effects of Brand Experience and Product Involvement on Brand Loyalty for Vietnamese Consumers

Contemporary consumers are increasingly looking at a product as an experience rather a material object. Consequently, an experiential approach in marketing is drawing attentions recently in generating consumer-based brand equity, as it emphasizes the importance of emotions in addition to rationality in consumer’s consumption behavior. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether five different Brand Experience Scale have differentiated impact on consumers’ brand satisfaction and brand loyalty in Vietnamese market. In particular, three different product category types, which have different levels of product involvement, are assessed in order to determine whether consumers make differentiated response to brand experience for products with different involvement levels. We find that Vietnamese consumers have differentiated brand experience in developing their brand loyalty for three different types of products which have different product involvement levels.
‘The importance of being honest’: Switzerland, neutrality and the problems of intelligence collection and liaison

This paper seeks to contribute to a number of debates that have attracted scholarly attention over the last few years. Firstly, by examining the experiences of the Swiss foreign intelligence service, the paper takes issue with what one scholar has dubbed ‘intelligence history snobbery’; a process that has privileged the study of the major powers and overlooked the contribution made to the secret world by the intelligence agencies of small states. Secondly, the paper explores the extent to which a state's engagement in the secret world is affected by its preconceived ideas over its place and standing in the international community. It asks whether the behaviour of a neutral foreign intelligence service is likely to differ from that of any other ‘small’ state, and whether neutrals can be both honest brokers in international affairs, and earnest players in the field of secret intelligence. The final section of the paper looks at the impact of the end of the Cold War and the emerging ‘global war on terror’ on the shape of the Swiss intelligence community.
A History of Contemporary Italy: Society and Politics, 1943-1988

In this long-awaited book (already a major bestseller in Italy), Ginsborg has created a fascinating, sophisticated and definitive account of how Italy has coped, or failed to cope, with the past two decades. Contemporary Italy strongly mirrors Britain - the countries have roughly the same extent, population size and GNP - and yet they are fantastically different. Ginsborg sees this difference as most fundamentally clear in the role of the family and it is the family which is at the heart of Italian politics and business. Anyone wishing to understand contemporary Italy will find it essential to have this enormously attractive and intelligent book.
Forecasting and Planning: An Evaluation

The formal practice of forecasting and planning F&P has risen to prominence within a few decades and now receives considerable attention from both academics and practitioners. This paper explicitly recognizes the nature of F&P as future-oriented decision making activities and, as such, their dependence upon judgmental inputs. A review of the extensive psychological literature on human judgmental abilities is provided from this perspective. It is argued that many of the numerous information processing limitations and biases revealed in this literature apply to tasks performed in F&P. In particular, the "illusion of control," accumulation of redundant information, failure to seek possible disconfirming evidence, and overconfidence in judgment are liable to induce serious errors in F&P. In addition, insufficient attention has been given to the implications of numerous studies that show that the predictive judgment of humans is frequently less accurate than that of simple quantitative models. Applied studies of F&P are also reviewed and shown to mirror many of the findings from psychology. The paper subsequently draws implications from these reviews and suggests reconceptualizing F&P through use of decision-theoretic concepts. At the organizational level this involves recognizing that F&P may perform many, often conflicting, manifest and latent functions which should be identified and evaluated through a multi-attribute utility framework. Operationally, greater use should be made of sensitivity analysis and the concept of the value of information.
Finasteride Blocks the Reduction in Ictal Activity Produced by Exogenous Estrous Cyclicity

The purpose of the present study was to examine seizure activity during reduced 5α‐pregnan‐3α‐ol‐20‐one (3α,5α‐THP) production. Ovariectomized Long‐Evans rats were stereotaxically implanted with bipolar electrodes above the perforant pathway; silastic implants filled with estradiol‐17‐benzoate (EB) and progesterone were inserted subcutaneously to mimic diestrus. Estrus was then induced in half of these animals by injection of EB (30 μg) and progesterone (2.5 mg), 48 and 4 h, respectively, prior to perforant pathway stimulation. Half of the estrous and diestrous rats also received a 5α‐reductase inhibitor, finasteride (50 mg/kg), 6 h prior to perforant pathway stimulation. The estrous condition was associated with reduced number and duration of partial seizures, improved performance on a Morris water maze recovery of function test, reduced neuronal loss in the hilar region of the hippocampus, and elevated central and plasma 3α,5α‐THP, compared to estrus+finasteride, diestrus+vehicle and diestrus+finasteride conditions, which did not differ from each another. These data suggest antiseizure effects of estrus may be caused, in part, by the action of 3α,5α‐THP and that the precipitous decline in 3α,5α‐THP may restore seizure threshold to control levels.
Dipyridamole in chronic stable angina pectoris; a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled, parallel group study.

BACKGROUND Oral dipyridamole induces accumulation of endogenous adenosine, which in a hypoxic milieu exerts experimentally an angiogenic effect on coronary collateral circulation. A meta-analysis of 13 randomized placebo-controlled trials published between 1960 and 1992 showed evidence of benefit for dipyridamole in the treatment of angina pectoris, especially with longer duration of treatment. Aim To assess the efficacy and safety of dipyridamole in the treatment of patients with chronic stable angina in a large scale, international, randomized, placebo-controlled, parallel group study. METHODS Four hundred patients with chronic stable angina pectoris and a positive treadmill exercise test were randomized to receive either modified release dipyridamole (200 mg b.i.d. p.o., n=198) or corresponding placebo (n=202), for 24 weeks as an add-on to conventional antianginal therapy and for 4 additional weeks as monotherapy--the latter after withdrawal of standard treatment with calcium antagonists and/or beta-blockers and/or long-acting (prophylactic) nitrates. RESULTS Of the 198 patients randomized to dipyridamole, 134 completed the add-on and only 12 the monotherapy phase. Of the 202 patients randomized to placebo, 162 reached the add-on and only 12 the monotherapy phase. Serious adverse events occurred in 15 patients with dipyridamole and in 12 with placebo (7.6% vs 6.0, P=0.52). Increase over the baseline treadmill exercise test was similar in the treatment groups at each stage of the trial for all the main efficacy parameters: total treadmill exercise test duration; time to first anginal pain (except for a -13 s difference in favour of placebo at week 24;P=0.040); time to ST segment depression >0.1 mVolt (except for a +21 s difference in favour of dipyridamole at week 8;P=0.024; this latter difference was totally attributable to patients with lower exercise tolerance--Bruce stage II at study entry). CONCLUSION In patients with chronic stable angina treated with regular antianginal background medication, the use of oral dipyridamole is safe and well tolerated. Antianginal and antiischaemic efficacy, as assessed by exercise testing, is comparable to placebo, except for a beneficial effect on time to ischaemia after 2 months, totally attributable to patients with lower exercise tolerance at study entry.
Macaque V 1 representations in natural and reduced visual contexts : spatial and temporal properties and influence of saccadic eye movements

Ruiz O, Paradiso MA. Macaque V1 representations in natural and reduced visual contexts: spatial and temporal properties and influence of saccadic eye movements. J Neurophysiol 108: 324–333, 2012. First published March 28, 2012; doi:10.1152/jn.00733. 2011. —Vision in natural situations is different from the paradigms generally used to study vision in the laboratory. In natural vision, stimuli usually appear in a receptive field as the result of saccadic eye movements rather than suddenly flashing into view. The stimuli themselves are rich with meaningful and recognizable objects rather than simple abstract patterns. In this study we examined the sensitivity of neurons in macaque area V1 to saccades and to complex background contexts. Using a variety of visual conditions, we find that natural visual response patterns are unique. Compared with standard laboratory situations, in more natural vision V1 responses have longer latency, slower time course, delayed orientation selectivity, higher peak selectivity, and lower amplitude. Furthermore, the influences of saccades and background type (complex picture vs. uniform gray) interact to give a distinctive, and presumably more natural, response pattern. While in most of the experiments natural images were used as background, we find that similar synthetic unnatural background stimuli produce nearly identical responses (i.e., complexity matters more than “naturalness”). These findings have important implications for our understanding of vision in more natural situations. They suggest that with the saccades used to explore complex images, visual context (“surround effects”) would have a far greater effect on perception than in standard experiments with stimuli flashed on a uniform background. Perceptual thresholds for contrast and orientation should also be significantly different in more natural situations.
Localization of endothelin-converting enzyme-1 in human kidney

C. PUPILLI,1 P. ROMAGNANI,1 L. LASAGNI,1 F. BELLINI,1 N. MISCIGLIA,1 N. EMOTO,3 M. YANAGISAWA,3 M. RIZZO,2 M. MANNELLI,1 AND M. SERIO1 Department of Clinical Physiopathology, 1Endocrinology Unit and 2Clinic of Urology, University of Florence, 50139 Florence, Italy; and 3Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas 75235
Left Ventricular Aneurysm: A New Surgical Approach

Since 1984, we have used a circular patch to reconstruct the left ventricle ("endoventricular circular plasty") in order to maintain a more physiologic cavity. This technique has three theoretical advantages over standard linear closure of the left ventricle (LV). First, it allows exclusion of the septal akinetic segment of the LV. Secondly, circular reorganization of the remaining LV muscle avoids the restraint caused by the linear suture closure and achieves a more physiologic LV cavity. Thirdly, circular plasty using the patch allows a complete resection of aneurysmal segments including resection of extensive subendocardial scar tissue, when appropriate, without critically compromising the cavity size. The technique involves the following steps: --Resection of dyskinetic or akinetic LV free wall and thrombectomy when indicated. --A dacron patch lined with pericardium is secured at the junction of the endocardial muscle and scarred tissue, thereby excluding non contractile portions of the LV and septum. --Myocardial revascularization is performed as indicated with particular attention paid to revascularizing the proximal left anterior descending segment. The group of patients forming this study includes 130 cases of LV reconstruction since 1984. The three main indications for surgery were angina (40%), cardiac failure (35%), arrhythmias (10%). There have been 8 hospital deaths, 4 late mortalities related to recurrence of cardiac failure in this group. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
A Student Teacher's Personal Pathway to Education for Sustainability

Abstract Increasing attention is being given to the inclusion of Education for Sustainability in pre-service teacher education. However, there is little research to explain why and how early-career teachers include Education for Sustainability in their work, or how teacher education providers can encourage and support them to do this. Through analysis of two interviews this paper examines the way in which a pre-service primary school teacher interprets her role in Education for Sustainability. Her personal reflections on the manner in which her life experiences, including her own schooling, have influenced her intentions as teacher are explored. Her university teacher education program in Education for Sustainability and her teaching internship experience also appear to have influenced her teaching goals. The profile presented in this paper outlines her intentions and sense of identity as teacher and how that has developed and is expressed. Conclusions centre on the relevance of her reflections for education for sustainability in pre-service teacher education. In particular, her example demonstrates how the development of pedagogical content knowledge relevant to Education for Sustainability during the pre-service years can play an integral part in an individual's decision-making when teaching.
Causes of peri-operative mortality after transcatheter aortic valve implantation: a pooled analysis of 12 studies and 1223 patients.

BACKGROUND In order to improve technique and to prevent serious procedural complications during transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), it is crucial to identify the causes of death of patients undergoing this procedure. OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to identify the causes of death during the procedure and at 1 month in patients with severe aortic stenosis undergoing TAVI. METHODS 12 published studies with information about the causes of death in patients undergoing TAVI were selected. Overall, 1223 patients were included in these studies, and 249 deaths were reported (119 at 1 month and 130 at >1 month post-procedure). Mortality during the procedure and at 1 month was 2.3% and 9.7%, respectively. The proportion of cardiac deaths was higher at <1 month in comparison with >1 month (56% versus 34%, respectively; p = 0.001). At 1 month, the most frequent causes of death were cardiac failure/multi-organ failure (24%), sudden death/cardiac arrest (17%), vascular and bleeding complications (17%), stroke (11%), sepsis (11%), and cardiac tamponade (10%). During the procedure, the most frequent causes of death were cardiac tamponade (39%), cardiac failure (21%), cardiac arrest (18%), and vascular and/or bleeding complications (18%). In patients treated with the CoreValve system (Medtronic, Minneapolis, Minnesota) versus those treated with Edwards valves (Cribier-Edwards, Edwards-SAPIEN or SAPIEN XT valve, Edward Lifesciences, Irvine, California), deaths at 1 month due to vascular and bleeding complications were less frequent (3% versus 22%, respectively; p = 0.019), but those due to cardiac tamponade (26% versus 6%, respectively; p = 0.019), and because of aortic regurgitation (10% versus 0%, respectively; p = 0.03) were more frequent. CONCLUSION In this pooled analysis, mortality at 1 month after TAVI was 9.7%. The causes of death were widely variable, and of both cardiac and non-cardiac origin. There were some important differences between both devices in the cause of mortality.
Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma: A Population-Based Study of Survival

Introduction: This study characterizes the overall survival (OS) and variables affecting OS in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma. Methods: A total of 9701 patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma, diagnosed from 1973 to 2006, were retrospectively analyzed using the population-based surveillance, epidemiology, and end results database. Results: The 6-month, 1-year, and 5-year OS were 55, 33, and 5%, respectively. Significantly adverse prognostic factors from univariate analyses included older age, male gender, higher tumor grade, nonepithelioid histology, higher stage, no cancer-directed surgery, and no radiotherapy. Race was not significant. Patients undergoing cancer-directed surgery and radiotherapy, when grouped by stage, histology, or grade, had the best median survival (versus radiotherapy or surgery alone or no surgery/radiotherapy). From Cox proportional hazards analyses, grade (range, 1–4) was associated with a hazard ratio (HR) of >1.5 (p < 0.0001), and not undergoing cancer-directed surgery was associated with a HR of >1.4 (p < 0.0001). Male gender and older age were also significantly adverse factors. Tumor histology (HR = 1.5) and nonlocalized stage (HR = 1.3) were significant in a Cox model omitting tumor grade. With grade and histology included in the Cox model, the HRs of histology and stage were of smaller magnitude and not significant. Conclusions: From a population-based registry analysis of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma, tumor grade and cancer-directed surgery seem to have the greatest impact on OS. Although being amenable to surgery likely reflects more indolent disease and/or better performance status and cardiopulmonary function, the significantly favorable impact of surgery, accounting for tumor grade, histology, and stage, may reflect a therapeutic benefit.
Cost‐Benefit Analysis: Definition, Justification, and Comment on Conference Papers

In this comment on the conference papers, Judge Posner argues for a pragmatic construal and defense of cost‐benefit analysis, demonstrating the benefit of such analysis; responding to specific criticisms of, and suggested changes in, the analysis; and emphasizing that the value of such analysis as an evaluative and decision tool for social and economic policy making does not depend on the resolution of philosophical problems.
Indexing and Stock Price Efficiency

type="main"> Indexing has experienced substantial growth over the last two decades because it is an effective way of holding a diversified portfolio while minimizing trading costs and taxes. In this article, we focus on one negative externality of indexing: the effect on the efficiency of stock prices. Based on a sample of large and liquid US stocks, we find that greater indexing leads to less efficient stock prices, as indicated by stronger post-earnings-announcement drift and greater deviations of stock prices from the random walk. We conjecture that reduced incentives for information acquisition and arbitrage induced by indexing and passive trading are probably the main causes for degradation in price efficiency.
Lifetime prevalence and determinants of antidepressant usage in a 2015 cross-sectional South Australian sample

There is disagreement over the demographic risk factors for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Using data from the 3,005 participants of the 2015 Health Omnibus Survey, previously researched determinants as well as bullying and sexual assault exposure were investigated as predictors of depression. MDD predictors were hypothesised to include: Indigenous ethnicity, female gender, experience of bullying or sexual assault, age under 25, lower socioeconomic status and non-metropolitan residence. Lifetime MDD was inferred via any previous use of antidepressants. Chi square tests and a binary logistic regression were used to calculate the adjusted odds ratios. Results showed that Indigenous ethnicity, rural residence and age under 25 years did not predict antidepressant use. However, female gender, exposure to bullying or sexual abuse, age and socioeconomic status were significant predictors. Future research should investigate the interactions between these factors, investigate other determinants and examine causal pathways for more informed Government interventions.
SO2 emissions and the environmental Kuznets curve: the case of Chinese provinces

This paper aims at estimating the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for the sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions in a panel of 28 Chinese provinces. First, using a fixed effects model, econometric findings reveal an N shape EKC with a turning point of 4500 yuans (index 1990). However, a Chow test reveals a break in 1995, so that the estimation of the model indicates an increasing linear relationship between GDP per capita and SO2 emissions. The previous results imply that the decrease of the Chinese sulphur dioxide emissions during 1996–1999 did not result from the ECK but from an exogenous public action.