Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Commentary: controversies in NICE guidance on prostate cancer

The NICE guidelines on prostate cancer provide comprehensive advice on best practice for diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer. They are based on systematic reviews of the evidence, incorporate multidisciplinary opinions, and try to balance the values of healthcare providers and patients for various outcomes while emphasising a patient centred approach. Their conclusions are generally consistent with other reviews and guidelines evaluating similar evidence.1 2 3 4 5 If followed, these recommendations will likely improve prostate cancer outcomes while reducing unnecessary, ineffective, harmful, and costly care. Although NICE’s recommendations are generally appropriate, any guidelines on prostate cancer are going to be hampered by the lack of high quality information available. The paucity of randomised trials limits the quality of data used for informed decision making, particularly regarding detection and treatment of localised disease. Even where randomised trials have shown benefits, the absolute magnitude of benefit is generally small, requires many years to accrue, and must be weighed against accompanying harms and costs. Few studies enrolled men with disease that had been detected as a result of measuring the level of prostate specific antigen (PSA) or were adequately powered to assess survival outcomes. Individual patients and providers may place different values on a particular outcome or have clinical and tumour characteristics that have not been adequately assessed by the trials providing the evidence used for drafting …
The War Puzzle: PRELIMINARIES

Part I. Preliminaries: Introduction 1. Conceptualizing war 2. Types of war 3. Power politics and war Part II. The Onset and Expansion of Wars of Rivalry: 4. Territorial continuity as a source of conflict leading to war 5. The realist road to war 6. The domestic prerequisites of wars of rivalry 7. Explaining world war: its scope, severity, and duration 8. Peace 9. Conclusion.
Clostridium difficile Infections in a Canadian Tertiary Care Hospital before and during a Regional Epidemic Associated with the BI/NAP1/027 Strain

ABSTRACT Since 2002, an epidemic of Clostridium difficile infections has occurred in southern Quebec, Canada. At Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the incidence of C. difficile infections increased from 11/1,000 admissions (1999 to 2002) to 27/1,000 admissions (2003 to 2005). We compared the exposures and outcomes for patients infected with strains with different ribopatterns isolated before (n = 55) and during (n = 175) the epidemic, as well as the in vitro activities of antibiotics against those isolates. During the preepidemic period, 46 isolates (84%) were of ribotype 001, 1 was of ribotype 027, and 8 were of other ribopattern types. During the epidemic period, ribotype 027 strains accounted for 140 (80%) isolates; 26 (15%) were of ribotype 001, and 7 were of other ribopattern types. Ribotype 027 strains were highly resistant to fluoroquinolones (FQs) but were susceptible to clindamycin. A pattern of prior specific antibiotic exposure that selected for antibiotic-resistant ribotype C. difficile infections was observed for FQs (ribotype 027) and clindamycin (ribotype 001). The rate of mortality was higher among older patients, those with a high Charlson comorbidity index, and those with longer previous hospitalizations. By multivariate analysis, patients infected with ribotype 027 were twice as likely to die within 30 days of diagnosis than patients infected with other ribotypes (adjusted odds ratio, 2.06; 95% confidence interval, 1.00 to 4.22). The observations from this study support the notion that continued selective antibiotic pressure resulted in the superimposition of the hypertoxigenic ribotype 027 clone on top of the prior dominant ribotype 001 clone in a setting of preexisting high endemicity, thus leading to the high rates of morbidity and mortality seen in the Quebec outbreak. Stringent antibiotic stewardship measures, combined with aggressive infection control, are required to curtail the epidemic of C. difficile infections.
Comparison of the American Joint Committee on Cancer Seventh Edition and Brigham and Women's Hospital Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma Tumor Staging in Immunosuppressed Patients

BACKGROUND The American Joint Committee on Cancer 7th edition (AJCC-7) and Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) staging criteria for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) have not been validated in immunosuppressed patients. OBJECTIVE To compare the AJCC-7 and BWH staging systems for cSCCs in immunosuppressed patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS A single-institution retrospective cohort study of cSCCs in immunosuppressed patients. Risks of local recurrence (LR), nodal metastasis (NM), in-transit metastasis, and any poor outcome (PO) were compared among AJCC-7 and BWH tumor T stages. RESULTS One hundred six patients had 412 primary invasive cSCCs. Eighty-five percent were AJCC-7 T1, and 15% T2. Risks of NM and PO for AJCC-7 T1 versus T2 were 0.9% versus 5% and 12.8% versus 23.3%, respectively, p < . 05. Eighty-one percent of tumors were BWH T1, 18% T2a, 1% T2b, and 0.2% T3. Risk of LR for BWH T1 versus T2a was 11.4% versus 20.3%, p < . 01. Risk of NM increased from 0.3% for T1 to 4.1%, 25%, and 100% for T2a, T2b, and T3, p < . 05. Ninety percent of PO occurred in low-stage BWH T1/T2a. CONCLUSION Low T-stage cSCCs account for most POs. Brigham and Women's Hospital staging criteria better risk stratifies cSCCs in immunosuppressed patients for risk of NM and LR.
How public-private partnership projects impact infrastructure industry for economic growth

Purpose - – Public-private partnership (PPP) is mutually beneficial relationships that are formed between the public and private sectors. The private-sector partner typically makes a substantial equity investment, and in return the public sector gains access to new or improved services. When properly vetted and structured, PPP allocate risk to the party best suited to handle it. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the scale and nature of the PPP's contribution as a driver of the economic growth and gross domestic product (GDP). Design/methodology/approach - – Using statistics causality modeling and relevant statistical techniques, the dynamic interactions and interdependencies over PPP and economic growth were addressed and quantified. Findings - – Although PPP can free up government resources for other public priorities, three key factors enable PPP to stimulate a country's economic growth: the number of PPP projects under way, the value of PPP projects, and the ideal type of PPP contracts in use. Originality/value - – The number, value, and type of PPP, combined with supportive policies, power economic growth. Governments with well-established and enforced policies against corruption, combined with low business transaction costs, a transparent legislative system, and exchange rate and monetary stability are far more attractive to the private sector.
Learning, political regimes and the liberalisation of trade

In this article, the probability of opening to trade is related to a country's propensity to learn from other countries in its region. It is argued that countries have different motivations to learn, depending upon the responsiveness and accountability of their political regimes. Whereas democracies cannot afford to be dogmatic, authoritarian regimes are less motivated to learn from the experience of others, even if they embrace policies that fail. Using data on trade liberalisation for 57 developing countries in the period 1970–1999, it is found that democracies confronting economic crises are more likely to liberalise trade as a result of learning; among democracies, presidential systems seem to learn more, whereas personalist dictatorial regimes are the most resistant to learning from the experience of others.
The Security Scale as a measure of attachment: meta-analytic evidence of validity

ABSTRACT This meta-analysis evaluated the psychometric properties of the Security Scale (SS; k = 57 studies), a measure specifically designed to assess attachment in middle childhood, using several criteria: stability over time, associations with other attachment measures, relations with caregiver sensitivity, and associations with theoretically driven outcomes. The SS demonstrated moderate stability and meaningful associations with other attachment measures and caregiver sensitivity. Furthermore, the SS showed significant associations with developmental correlates of attachment: school adaptation, emotional and peer social competence, self-esteem, and behavioral problem. Some effect sizes varied as a function of socioeconomic status (SES; peer social competence and maladjustment) and publication status (emotional competence, peer social competence, and self-esteem). The association between the SS and our constructs of interest were, for the most part, independent of geographical location and child gender or age. Overall, findings suggest that the SS is a robust measure of attachment in middle childhood and early adolescence.
International Asset Pricing with Recursive Preferences

Focusing on US and UK, we document that both the Backus and Smith (1993) finding, concerning the low correlation between consumption differentials and exchange rates, and the forward-premium anomaly, concerning the tendency of high interest rate currencies to appreciate, have become more severe through time. After accounting for different capital mobility regimes, we show that these anomalies turn into general equilibriumregularities in a two-country and two-good economy with Epstein and Zin (1989) preferences, frictionless markets, and highly correlated long-run endowment growth prospects.
School-based health centers: cost-benefit analysis and impact on health care disparities.

OBJECTIVES We evaluated the impact of school-based health centers-which provide essential health care for students by aiming to eliminate many access barriers-on health care access disparities and conducted a cost-benefit analysis. METHODS We employed a longitudinal quasi-experimental repeated-measures design. Primary data sources included the Ohio Medicaid claims, enrollment file with race/ethnicity, and survey reports from parents. We used hierarchical linear modeling to control unbalanced data because of student attrition. We assessed quarterly total Medicaid reimbursement costs for 5056 students in the SBHC and non-SBHC groups from 1997 to 2003. We calculated net social benefit to compare the cost of the SBHC programs with the value that SBHCs might save or create. RESULTS With SBHCs, the gap of lower health care cost for African Americans was closed. The net social benefits of the SBHC program in 4 school districts were estimated as $1,352,087 over 3 years. We estimated that the SBHCs could have saved Medicaid about $35 per student per year. CONCLUSIONS SBHCs are cost beneficial to both the Medicaid system and society, and may close health care disparity gaps.
Distribution of Research Gains in Multistage Production Systems: Comment

In a recent paper, Freebairn, Davis, and Edwards (hereafter FDE) have examined an interesting and neglected aspect of the distribution of benefits from research. Agricultural production is seen to comprise three stages: input supply, farm production, and farm to retail marketing. FDE have explored the distribution of the benefit stemming from a downwards shift in the supply function at any one of the stages. They conclude these benefits are distributed according to the elasticities of consumer demand and supply facing each stage. Furthermore, under the special assumptions they employ, this distribution is independent of which of the three supply functions is shifted by research. They conclude, albeit with due caution, that the choice of agricultural research projects should not be limited to farm production research alone, especially in view of the cost shares of purchased inputs and marketing services in the retail value of food. "In fact," they argue "they [farmers] may receive greater benefits from off-farm-oriented research than from farm-oriented research" (p. 39). This finding has potentially important implications for agricultural research policy. It immediately spurs one to ask whether research funded by the farmer or the fisc might have neglected opportunities for research related to farm inputs or marketing. To reach their result FDE assume (a) all supply and demand curves are linear, (b) research induces parallel shifts in supply curves, (c) farmers cannot substitute nonfarm inputs for inputs supplied by farmers in production of the farm product, and (d) marketing firms cannot substitute marketing inputs for raw farm products in the production of retail commodities. The purpose of this note is to emphasize the importance of these elasticities of factor substitution in determining the distribution of research benefits between the three stages. To do this we use a simple but general two-factor model in which we focus attention on the elasticity of factor substitution between marketing services and raw farm products in the third stage, marketing. This model is not restricted to linear supply and demand curves, nor to an elasticity of substitution of zero. We maintain the assumptions of parallel shifts of supply curves induced by research and a perfectly elastic supply of marketing services. In a revision of FDE's application to the U.S. hog industry, the distribution of research benefits is shown to depend crucially on the elasticity of factor substitution. Their result, that such distribution is independent of the stage in which research shifts the supply curve downwards, follows only for the special case in which that elasticity is zero. This is clearly a restrictive assumption. A reexamination of some of the policy issues raised by FDE, once the assumption is relaxed, would seem to be warranted.
A phase II study of allogeneic natural killer cell therapy to treat patients with recurrent ovarian and breast cancer.

BACKGROUND Natural killer (NK) cells derived from patients with cancer exhibit diminished cytotoxicity compared with NK cells from healthy individuals. We evaluated the tumor response and in vivo expansion of allogeneic NK cells in recurrent ovarian and breast cancer. METHODS Patients underwent a lymphodepleting preparative regimen: fludarabine 25 mg/m(2) × 5 doses, cyclophosphamide 60 mg/kg × 2 doses, and, in seven patients, 200 cGy total body irradiation (TBI) to increase host immune suppression. An NK cell product, from a haplo-identical related donor, was incubated overnight in 1000 U/mL interleukin (IL)-2 prior to infusion. Subcutaneous IL-2 (10 MU) was given three times/week × 6 doses after NK cell infusion to promote expansion, defined as detection of ≥100 donor-derived NK cells/μL blood 14 days after infusion, based on molecular chimerism and flow cytometry. RESULTS Twenty (14 ovarian, 6 breast) patients were enrolled. The median age was 52 (range 30-65) years. Mean NK cell dose was 2.16 × 10(7)cells/kg. Donor DNA was detected 7 days after NK cell infusion in 9/13 (69%) patients without TBI and 6/7 (85%) with TBI. T-regulatory cells (Treg) were elevated at day +14 compared with pre-chemotherapy (P = 0.03). Serum IL-15 levels increased after the preparative regimen (P = <0.001). Patients receiving TBI had delayed hematologic recovery (P = 0.014). One patient who was not evaluable had successful in vivo NK cell expansion. CONCLUSIONS Adoptive transfer of haplo-identical NK cells after lymphodepleting chemotherapy is associated with transient donor chimerism and may be limited by reconstituting recipient Treg cells. Strategies to augment in vivo NK cell persistence and expansion are needed.
Promoting the entrepreneurs of tomorrow: entrepreneurship education and start-up intentions among schoolchildren

Research and policy literature stress entrepreneurship and innovation at higher education institutions as central driving forces behind job creation and economic growth, but few studies have looked at how secondary schools can contribute to create a more dynamic enterprise culture. In this paper, we correct this gap in our knowledge. The main aim is to evaluate to what extent a European entrepreneurship programme promotes start-up intentions among schoolchildren. The programme investigated is the company programme (CP) provided by the NGO Junior Achievement – Young Enterprise Europe. CP is taught in 40 European countries. Our study is done in Norway, and CP reaches 10% of all children in the Norwegian upper secondary school. Our econometric results indicate that CP stimulates start-up intentions. Hence, it indicates that entrepreneurship education programmes are able to influence entrepreneurial intentions among children with different social backgrounds.
Reporting on intellectual capital: why, what and how?

Intellectual capital is an important value driver in today’s organizations. Traditional financial statements do not provide the relevant information for managers or investors to understand how their resources – many of which are intangible – create value in the future. Intellectual capital statements are designed to bridge this gap by providing information about how intellectual resources create future value. Intellectual capital statements can be used as tools to communicate the knowledge‐based strategy externally but it can also be used as an internal management tool. In this article we outline the reasons for reporting intellectual capital, introduce the elements of such statements, and present a case example from a Danish mobile phone design company.
Investigations on properties of (ZnO:Al) films prepared by RF/DC co-sputtering

Aluminum doped zinc oxide (ZnO:Al) thin films with high conductivity, resistance to ion irradiation, high transparency in the visible range and moderate costs will be one of the most promising candidates for the present predominant transparent conducting materials. However, there are still some problems such as long preparation cycle and high surface resistance. In this paper, adding a certain amount of radio frequency (RF) power to the applied DC power, this technique known as RF-DC co-sputtering ionization is mainly driven by oscillating electrons in the bulk plasma, there is an enhanced substrate bombardment by plasma ions (mainly Ar+) of moderate energy to improve the optical and electrical properties of the film. The samples of crystal structure, surface morphology, electrical conductivity were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), four-probe meter, as well as visible spectrophotometer. The results show that the average transmittance in the visible was 89% and the resistivity was reduced by 80% compared to other single technique. When the radio frequency power makes up around 50% of the total, the resistivity reach a minimum of 1.5×10-3Ω•cm, improve the homogeneity of the film Effectively. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.11591/telkomnika.v10i5. 1273
Short-Termism, the Financial Crisis, and Corporate Governance

This article is a comprehensive exploration of why financial and nonfinancial firms engage in short-termism with particular attention given to the financial crisis of 2007-2009. Short-termism, which is also referred to as earnings management (or, alternatively, managerial myopia), consists of the excessive focus of corporate managers, asset managers, investors and analysts on short-term results, whether quarterly earnings or short-term portfolio returns, and a repudiation of concern for long-term value creation and the fundamental value of firms. This article examines market and internal firm dynamics that contribute to short-termism, which requires an examination of various structural, informational, behavioral and incentive problems operating within firms and markets. This article also discusses various regulatory responses to mitigate short-termism, including provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. It is the objective of this article to seek changes that would improve our financial system and prevent a financial meltdown in the future, such as the financial crisis of 2007-2009 that has had such a devastating impact on the U.S. and global economies.
Set shifting deficit in anorexia nervosa

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a severe mental illness characterized in part by rigid thinking and ritualized behaviors involving eating and weight. Cognitive rigidity may play a role in the perpetuation of symptoms, and may provide information as to important brain-based abnormalities. Neuropsychological studies of patients with AN have shown cognitive dysfunction, but few have focused on cognitive flexibility. This study assessed set shifting in patients with AN, as a measure of cognitive flexibility. In this study, 15 patients with AN were compared with 11 healthy controls using a neuropsychological battery including the Wisconsin Card Sort Test (WCST). While patients with AN did not differ from controls on 5 measures of neuropsychological function, they made significantly more perseverative errors on the WCST, indicating a problem in set shifting. This finding suggests that patients with AN have a specific neurocognitive abnormality that may play a role in the development and persistence of this disorder. (JINS, 2006, 12, 431–435.)
Market Networks and Corporate Behavior

Data on market relations between a large population of corporations and investment banks are used to study the organization-market interforce-the pattern of direct market ties between a firm and its banks. Forms of interfaces range from a long-term, exclusive tie (the relationship interface) to many short-lived, episodic ties (the transaction interface), with hybrid forms between the two poles. Contrary to widespread belief, the article finds that strong relationships still exist. Transactions interfaces are rare. Most firms use hybrid interfaces. A firm's interface is conceptualized as the intentional result of its efforts to reduce dependence and exploit power advantages. Observed interfaces are shown to be related systematically to various power-dependence concepts, including resource intensity (number of transactions and dollar amounts raised), criticality (the availability of resource alternatives), power asymmetry between a firm and its main bank, organization size, standardization of exchange, and the use of tandem strategies (director interlocks).