Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-term restrictions in participation in stroke survivors under and over 70 years of age

Abstract Purpose: This study aims to (1) assess differences in participation restrictions between stroke survivors aged under and over 70 years and (2) identify predictors associated with favorable and unfavorable long-term participation in both age groups. Methods: Prospective cohort study in which 326 patients were assessed at stroke onset, two months and one year after stroke. The Utrecht Scale for Evaluation of Rehabilitation-Participation (USER-Participation) was used to measure participation restrictions one year after stroke. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed including demographic factors, stroke-related factors, emotional functioning and comorbidity as possible predictors. Results: Stroke survivors aged over 70 years perceived more participation restrictions in comparison to stroke survivors aged under 70 years one year after stroke. Independently significant predictors for unfavorable participation outcomes were advancing age, more severe stroke and anxiety symptoms in patients aged over 70 years, and female gender, more severe stroke, impaired cognition and depression symptoms in patients aged under 70 years. Lower age was the only independent predictor associated with favorable participation after one year in stroke survivors aged over 70 years. Conclusions: This study emphasizes the need to pay more attention to participation restrictions in elderly stroke survivors. Implications for rehabilitation More attention in the rehabilitation process should be paid to restrictions in participation of stroke survivors aged older than 70 years, taking into account the different participation needs and predictors of older stroke survivors. Early screening on the presence of anxiety symptoms could potentially prevent long-term restrictions in participation in stroke survivors aged over 70-year old. Stroke survivors experience considerable restrictions in physical activity and mobility after one year, highlighting the need for the development of community-based exercise programs for stroke survivors.
Debate: Fraud risk management in the public sector

References Arnaboldi, M. and Palermo, T. (2011), Translating ambiguous reforms: doing better next time? Management Accounting Research, 1, pp. 6–15. Gazzetta Ufficiale (2012), Decreto-legge 6 luglio 2012, n. 95 Disposizioni urgenti per la revisione della spesa pubblica con invarianza dei servizi ai cittadini. Milano Finanza (2012), Sondaggio, cala la popolarità del governo Monti (14 April). OECD (2011), Typology and Implementation of Spending Reviews (Paris). Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri (2012), Comunicato stampa (6 July).
Family policy, employment and gender-role attitudes: a comparative analysis of Russia and Sweden

In this article, we explore the interaction between female and male employment, parenting responsibilities and family policy in Russia and Sweden. The study is based first on indicators of public social services, assistance for families and labour force data; and second, on the ISSP modules on Family and Changing Gender Roles (years 1994, 2002). The results show that both Sweden and Russia facilitate the `dual-earner' family model, but that Sweden places a greater emphasis on dual-caring and flexible work arrangements for women. The support for traditional gender roles was much higher and more uniform in Russia than in Sweden. The proportion of `dual-earner' and female-led families was nevertheless higher in Russia than in Sweden, especially in 1994 when major restructuring in the social and economic sphere was occurring. The findings suggest that family policy is instrumental in facilitating female employment, but does not necessarily bring changes in gender-role attitudes.
Currency devaluations and consolidating democracy: the example of the South African rand

Abstract In 2001 the South African rand depreciated suddenly and steeply against the dollar and euro. This triggered inflation as the prices of imported products gapped upward. To offset the imminent inflationary effects and attract foreign exchange, the Reserve Bank raised interest rates, resulting in slower domestic growth. The critical question was the cause of the currency depreciation. We argue here that the rand's decline was the result of a concatenation of internal and external factors, specifically the way the operations of the global financial markets magnified and exacerbated the effects of internal financial policy decisions. The article illustrates the heightening connectivity between domestic policy decisions aimed at regulating the national economy and the globalizing financial markets that operate on an altogether different logic. The Reserve Bank's attempt to regulate the local foreign exchange regime in concert with the corporate use of financial instruments to circumvent these exchange controls led to a relatively illiquid currency market that was easily susceptible to attack by speculative capital. The end result was a crippling devaluation that especially hurt the impoverished black South African majority in the process of getting on its feet economically, thereby adding a further constraint on the consolidation of post-apartheid democracy.
Interest Rate Dynamics, Variable-Rate Loan Contracts, and the Business Cycle

The interest rate at which US firms borrow funds has two features: (i) it moves in a countercyclical fashion and (ii) it is an inverted leading indicator of real economic activity: low interest rates forecast booms in GDP, consumption, investment, and employment. We show that a Kiyotaki-Moore model accounts for both properties when business-cycle movements are driven, in a significant way, by animal spirit shocks to credit-financed investment demand. The credit-based nature of such self-fulfilling equilibria is shown to be essential: the dynamic correlation between current loanable funds rate and future aggregate economic activity depends critically on the property that the loan has a variable-rate component. In addition, Bayesian estimation of our benchmark DSGE model on US data 1975-2010 shows that movements in investment driven by animal spirits are quantitatively important and result in a better fit to the data than both standard RBC models and Kiyotaki-Moore type models with unique equilibrium.
An integrated approach to biomonitoring exposure to styrene and styrene-(7,8)-oxide using a repeated measurements sampling design

Abstract The aim of this work was to investigate urinary analytes and haemoglobin and albumin adducts as biomarkers of exposure to airborne styrene (Sty) and styrene-(7,8)-oxide (StyOX) and to evaluate the influence of smoking habit and genetic polymorphism of metabolic enzymes GSTM1 and GSTT1 on these biomarkers. We obtained three or four air and urine samples from each exposed worker (eight reinforced plastics workers and 13 varnish workers), one air and urine samples from 22 control workers (automobile mechanics) and one blood sample from all subjects. Median levels of exposure to Sty and StyOX, respectively, were 18.2 mg m−3 and 133 µg m−3 for reinforced plastics workers, 3.4 mg m−3 and 12 µg m−3 for varnish workers, and <0.3 mg m−3 and <5 µg m−3 for controls. Urinary levels of styrene, mandelic acid, phenylglyoxylic acid, phenylglycine (PHG), 4-vinylphenol (VP) and mercapturic acids (M1+M2), as well as cysteinyl adducts of serum albumin (but not those of haemoglobin) were significantly associated with exposure status (controls<exposed workers). Also, levels of VP and M1+M2 were significantly affected by smoking, and levels of M1+M2 were significantly affected by GSTM1 polymorphisms. Multiple linear regression analyses of the subject-specific (logged) metabolite levels across exposed workers showed that Sty was a significant predictor for all urinary analytes while StyOX was a significant predictor of PHG only. Interestingly, the log scale regression coefficients for Sty in these models were significantly less than one for all metabolites except M1+M2. This suggests that the natural scale relationships between levels of all Sty metabolites, except M1+M2, displayed downward concavity with increasing Sty exposure, suggestive of saturable metabolism. Levels of the protein adducts were not associated with exposure to either Sty or StyOX among exposed subjects.
City Scale Next Place Prediction from Sparse Data through Similar Strangers

Various methods predicting next locations of people have shown to be very successful under certain data conditions. Among other similarly sparse datasets, the nature of Call Detail Records (CDRs) limits the potentials of some approaches due to sparsity. Location information of users is mostly unavailable except when users initiate or receive phone activity. In this paper, we show that when information of travelers and their contacts is obtained from CDRs, alternative approaches become more effective. We tackle the problem of data sparsity in time stamped location data with the goal of improving accuracy of next location prediction in the case of CDRs. We propose a probabilistic framework for human mobility prediction in sparse datasets and introduce data of multiple phones for a richer dataset leading to better performance. The proposed method observes an increase in accuracy of the prediction by coupling with the data of most similar strangers, stranger in a sense that a social link doesn’t necessarily exist in the social graph. The dataset used in this study has 300 thousand users with a duration of a month. ACM Reference format: Fahad Alhasoun, May Alhazzani, Faisal Aleissa, Riyadh Alnasser, and Marta González. 2017. City Scale Next Place Prediction from Sparse Data through Similar Strangers. In Proceedings of ACM KDD Workshop, Halifax, Canada, August 14, 2017 (UrbComp’17), 8 pages. https://doi.org/
The Biphasic Effects of Centrally and Peripherally Administered Caffeine on Ethanol‐induced Motor Incoordination in Mice

Abstract— The possible biphasic effect of caffeine on acute ethanol‐induced motor incoordination by rotorod evaluation was investigated in mice. Caffeine in various doses was administered intracerebro‐ventricularly (i.e.v.) to mice implanted with permanent indwelling stainless steel guide cannulae and intraperitoneally (i.p.) to non‐cannulated animals. A motor incoordinating test dose of ethanol, 2 g kg−1, was given i.p. in both cases. Caffeine < 25 μg administered i.e.v. , dose‐dependently attenuated while 75 μg i.c. v. potentiated ethanol (i.p.)‐induced motor incoordination. Similarly, caffeine < 20 mg kg−1 given i.p., dose‐dependently attenuated while 62.5 mg kg−1 potentiated ethanol (i.p.)‐induced motor incoordination. The data obtained demonstrated that caffeine given either i.c. v. or i.p. exerted biphasic effects on ethanol‐induced motor incoordination. The data also suggested that caffeine antagonized ethanol‐induced motor incoordination when administered in appropriately low concentrations. At these low concentrations (< 25 μg i.c.v.; < 20 mg kg−1 i.p.) caffeine is well known to display high affinity for adenosine binding sites. Therefore, the present investigation lends further support to our earlier suggestion that adenosine may be involved in the motor impairing effect of ethanol.
Board composition and environmental innovation: does gender diversity matter?

This article aims at providing a better understanding of the link between board diversity and environmental innovation. In this perspective, we explore the relationship between several types of diversity in board composition (gender diversity, age diversity, and proportion of employee directors) and the probability and intensity of environmental benefits of innovation, from a sample of 142 French innovative firms based on data from French Community Innovation Survey (CIS) in 2008. Data from board composition have been drawn from annual reports. Our results show significant evidence of a positive relationship between environmental innovation and gender diversity as well as a positive relationship between environmental innovation and age diversity, and a negative relationship with the proportion of employee directors. These findings provide discussions for the impact of diversity in board composition on environmental benefits of innovation.
Explanatory factors of bank dividend policy: revisited

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dickens Design/methodology/approach - In this study, a sample of 99 firms with 2006 data from governmental reports and Yahoo is used in regression equations to test the relationship of the five identified variables with dividend yields. The analysis is extended to investigate non-linearities between dividend yield and insider ownership. Findings - The paper finds that the original model is robust, but not all variables keep their significance. Insider holdings have a non-linear relationship with dividend yields. Practical implications - The significant factors affecting bank dividend policy help dividend seeking investors find BHCs that return higher dividend yields. Originality/value - This paper reveals a non-linear link between insider holdings and dividend yields among BHCs.
Intrinsic Physiological and Morphological Properties of Principal Cells of the Hippocampus and Neocortex in Hamsters Infected with Scrapie

Scrapie is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, or "prion disease. " We investigated the effects of intracerebral Sc237 scrapie inoculation in hamsters on the physiology and morphology of principal cells from neocortical and hippocampal slices. Scrapie inoculation resulted in increased branching of basal dendrites of hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cells (Sholl analysis), reduced amplitudes of medium and late afterhyperpolarizations (AHPs) in CA1 pyramidal cells and layer V neocortical cells, loss of frequency potentiation of depolarizing afterpotentials (DAPs), and double action potentials in synaptically evoked CA1 pyramidal cell responses. Postsynaptic double action potentials could also be evoked in normal hamster CA1 pyramidal cells by acute pharmacological block of AHPs, suggesting that the depressed AHPs in scrapie-infected hamsters caused the action potential doublets. Both the AHP and the DAP potentiations depend on increased intracellular calcium, which suggests that the underlying deficit, in hamsters infected with Sc237 scrapie, may lie in calcium entry and/or homeostasis. Fast IPSPs, passive membrane properties, and density of dendritic spines remained unchanged. These last two results differ markedly from recent studies on mice infected with ME7 scrapie, indicating diversity of pathophysiology in this group of diseases, perhaps associated with the progressive and substantial neuronal loss found in the ME7, and not the Sc237, model.
Decentralization, perceived environmental uncertainty, managerial performance and management accounting system information in Egyptian hospitals

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence concerning: the relationships between decentralization, perceived environmental uncertainty, and management accounting systems (MAS) information and the relationships between MAS information and managerial performance within Egyptian hospitals. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected using questionnaires that were sent personally to the managers or heads of departments of Egyptian hospitals. Departmental level was used as the unit of analysis. Data obtained from 200 hospital managers were analyzed using partial least squares. Findings – The study reveals that decentralization and environmental uncertainty, to some extent, are essential factors in designing efficient and effective MAS. Hospitals with decentralized structure make better use of timely, aggregated and integrated MAS information. Environment in which the hospitals operate does have significant influence on the type of information provided by the MAS. Research limita.
Does interest rate shocks transmit from united states to Ghana?: Evidence from vector auto-regression

In the heat of severe global macroeconomic volatility, monetary authorities in the developing world are faced with the challenge of identifying the sources of such volatilities in their countries. Previous studies on developed countries have attributed home country macroeconomic shocks to monetary policy shocks in foreign countries. Consequently, it was suspected that interest rate shocks in trading partner countries such as the United States might be contributing to macroeconomic shocks in Ghana. Hence, the need to replicate such studies on Ghana becomes imperative. Therefore, this paper aims at (i) ascertaining whether Ghana’s interest rate respond to the interest rate shocks in USA (ii) finding out if interest rate shocks in USA affect other basic macroeconomic variables of the Ghanaian economy. Data on four Ghanaian variables of real gross domestic product, consumer price index, exchange rate and interest rate were collected. Data on U.S variables (federal fund rate and the world consumer price index) were also collected. All data series were annual and span the period, 1983 to 2011. A VAR model of the Ghanaian economy was specified assuming the U.S variables to be exogenous, affecting the vector of endogenous Ghanaian variables contemporaneously. To automatically resolve the problem of unit root found in our series when the mean reversion status of the series were checked, a VECM of the VAR model was estimated. The study further generated the impulse responses (IR) of the Ghanaian variables to variables of the United States. The impulse response analysis of our VAR model shows that in general, interest rate shocks in the United States as well as shocks in the global consumer prices led to insignificant fluctuations in the Ghanaian macro economy. While the countries’ real gross domestic product, interest rates and consumer price indices responded insignificantly to shocks originating from the United States (the upper standard error band fluctuated between 0.00 and 0.50 and the lower standard error band fluctuated between -0.00 and -0.40), its exchange rate responded significantly to shocks from U.S exchange rates (the upper standard error band took off from 0.00, went down to -0.03 before going up to 0.02 while its lower standard error band fluctuated between -0.00 and -0.4). By implication, macroeconomic shocks in Ghana are mostly home-made. To avoid being misled into wrong policy decisions, policy makers in Ghana were therefore advised to always strike a balance between imported and home-made shocks when allocating their policy making resources.
The effects of condensed tannins supplementation of foods with different protein content on parasitism, food intake and performance of sheep infected with Trichostrongylus colubriformis

The aims of the present study were to investigate (1), the potential anthelmintic properties and (2), the nutritional consequences of commercially available condensed tannins on parasitised sheep fed, ad libitum, either a high- or a low-protein food. For this purpose, forty-eight previously parasite-naïve sheep (n 12) were infected with 2000 Trichostrongylus colubriformis larvae/d for a 67-d experimental period. Two experimental foods were made: a low (L), formulated to be inadequate in meeting the requirements of growing sheep for metabolisable protein (MP), and based on wheat, citrus pulp, and oatfeed; a high (H), expected to be above the requirements of growing sheep for MP, based on similar ingredients but supplemented with protected soyabean meal. Two additional foods were made by adding 60 g Quebracho (a condensed tannins (CT) extract)/kg fresh matter to foods L and H (foods LQ and HQ respectively). This level of Quebracho supplementation has been previously shown to reduce the level of parasitism in restrictedly fed, parasitised sheep. The experiment was divided into two periods: period 1 (P1, day 1–38) and period 2 (P2, day 39–67), each one associated with different phases of an intestinal parasitic infection. Six sheep from each group were slaughtered at the end of P1, and the remaining sheep were slaughtered at the end of P2 (day 67). Although faecal egg counts (FEC; number of parasite eggs/g faeces) and total egg output were reduced in sheep offered the supplemented foods during P1 (P<0·05), worm burdens on day 38 were unaltered. Neither Quebracho supplementation nor food protein content during P2 affected FEC and worm burdens. Food intake and performance were higher in sheep offered food HQ compared with sheep offered food H (P<0·05); no differences were observed in sheep offered foods LQ and L throughout the experiment. The previously shown anthelmintic properties of CT were not observed following ad libitum intake of either low- or high-protein foods supplemented with Quebracho extract. Higher levels of CT supplementation may be required to reduce parasitism and consequently improve the performance of parasitised sheep, when fed ad libitum. Supplementation with CT conferred advantages on the performance of parasitised sheep on a high- but not on a low-protein food.
The influence of personality in determining farmer responsiveness to risk

Abstract Rural landholders are undergoing extended economic hardship, manifested in a range of social and ecological problems that limit the capacity of local areas to recover to economic levels necessary to sustain settlement. The uncertain influence of climate on production represents just one of the range of risk factors that landholders must face. Survival depends on the capacity of landholders to respond strategically to the stress which these risk factors generate. Our research indicates landholders’ capacity to modify land‐management practices, are dictated by their underlying personality traits and by presence or absence of other psychiatric morbidity. Where stresses exist, the capacity of people to respond actively to a planned problem solution diminishes. The psychological profiles of people tend to fall into three groups ‐ those who can generally cope; those who can usually cope but undergo dysfunctional episodes under acute stresses, and those who generally cannot cope. In the grazing lands of central western Queensland, our findings suggest a predominant personality profile consistent with an ability to cope with isolation and the other particular challenges that characterise this way of life. There are two important implications in these results. The first relates to land stewardship and has significant lessons for government intervention in terms of rural policy and approaches to extension. In particular, there are lessons pertinent to the success of Landcare and associated community based initiatives. The second relates to the broad area of rural health as highlighted by the alarming rates of suicide found in rural Australia. In previous decades, those with personality styles less well‐suited to this industry, found employment in nearby rural towns. This option has declined as government policy has favoured the withdrawal of services and resources, hastening depopulation of rural areas. The resultant weakening of the social fabric of rural society is a cause of tension and stress with serious health implications. Previous approaches to rural sociology have not emphasised individual personality traits in seeking to understand the complexity of the human‐environment relationships which determine land use. Nor has personality been invoked is assessing the potential of landholders to adopt ecologically sustainable practices. Further research is planned to consolidate our findings through comparative investigations in other branches of rural industry. JAgr Educ Ext (2001, 7, 3, pp 167–178)