Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Oral lichen planus and malignant transformation: The role of p16, Ki-67, Bub-3 and SOX4 in assessing precancerous potential

The association of oral lichen planus (OLP) lesions with malignant transformation risk has remained a controversial topic and is of clinical importance. Therefore, the present study evaluated the expression levels of p16, Ki-67, budding uninhibited by benzimidazoles 3 (Bub-3) and sex-determining region Y-related high mobility group box 4 (SOX4), and their roles as precancerous biomarkers in OLP. A retrospective study was performed, in which tissue blocks of OLP, oral dysplasia (OD), cutaneous lichen planus (CLP) and oral fibrous hyperplasia (OFH) were used (n=120). A positivity index (PI) for p16, BUB3, Ki-67 and SOX4 expression was calculated in each group. The PI for p16 was 20.65% for OLP, 7.85% for OD, 86.59% for CLP and 11.8% for OFH, and the difference between these groups was statistically significant (P<0.001). PIs of Ki-67 were indicated as 11.6% for OLP, 14.4% for OD, 8.24% for CLP and 5.5% for OFH, and a statistically significant difference was observed between the groups (P<0.001). Notably, the expression levels of BUB3 were not statistically different among groups. The highest expression levels of SOX4 were identified in CLP (P<0.001 vs. OLP/CLP; P=0,001 vs. CLP/OD). The determined expression levels of p16 and Ki-67 suggest that specific OLP lesions may have an intermediate malignant potential and should be carefully followed up. The intense SOX4 staining in CLP indicated a different proliferation pattern of epithelium compared with oral mucosa cells. These findings suggest that SOX4 expression may also be associated with the different clinical courses of OLP and CLP.
Metacognitive Prompt Overdose: Positive and Negative Effects of Prompts in iSTART

Interactive Strategy Training for Active Reading and Thinking (iSTART) is an intelligent tutoring system that supports reading comprehension through self-explanation (SE) training. This study tested how two metacognitive features, presented in a 2 x 2 design, affected students’ SE scores during training. The performance notification feature notified students when their average SE score dropped below an experimenter-set threshold. The self-rating feature asked participants to rate their own SE scores. Analyses of SE scores during training indicated that neither feature increased SE scores and, on the contrary, seemed to decrease SE performance after the first instance. These findings suggest that too many metacognitive prompts can be detrimental, particularly in a system that provides metacognitive strategy training.
Is Homelessness a Risk Factor for Eye Disease?

Background: There is general agreement on the presence of a correlation between poverty and impaired health. However, only scarce data are available on whether this also applies to the incidence of eye disease. The present study was carried out to evaluate the prevalence of ocular disease in homeless people in Germany. Methods: 107 homeless people (97 male, 10 female; mean age 49 years, range 18–81 years) treated in specialised social service institutions were investigated prospectively according to a standardised ophthalmological screening protocol. This comprised visual acuity, assessment of pupillary light reaction, intra-ocular pressure, slit lamp examination as well as funduscopy. Results: The median best-corrected visual acuity of all 213 eyes examined was 0.8 (range: no light perception to 1.25). 74 eyes of a subgroup of 50 patients showed one or more of the following disorders: 32% of the patients suffered from external eye disease, 8% exhibited a cataract associated with a visual acuity of 0.63 or below. 6% of the patients had optic nerve atrophy, and 4% suffered from amblyopia. Diabetic retinopathy as well as age-related macular degeneration were detected in 2%, while anophthalmos, lid malposition and traumatic choroidal rupture were noted in 1% of patients. The median visual acuity measured in these 74 eyes was 0.5 (range: no light perception to 1.25), which differs significantly from the acuity of 0.8 in the entire study population (p < 0.001). The prevalence of legal blindness according to WHO criteria was 2%. Conclusions: The present study revealed an unexpectedly high prevalence of optic nerve atrophy in homeless people. The prevalence for cataract and legal blindness was slightly higher than in representative epidemiological investigations. Thus, homelessness seems to be correlated with an increased ocular morbidity. As best-corrected visual acuity differed significantly between eyes with and those without eye disease, the assessment of this parameter may serve as a cost-effective first-stage screening method.
Food and tourism: an effective partnership? A UK-based review

This paper focuses on the role of food tourism in delivering sustainability agendas by examining how the agriculture and tourism sectors have struggled to realise measurable successes because of constraints, conflicting ambitions and low levels of social capital. It focuses on the United Kingdom, which has tasked regional development agencies to adopt food tourism as a means to grow local economies, create jobs and improve natural resources and diversify. In 2009/10, 16 interviews and six workshops were conducted with stakeholders to gauge industry challenges and needs in implementing food tourism. Based on qualitative findings, a model was developed which maps five emergent themes (knowledge exchange, the supply chain, fear of change, regionalisation and marketing) alongside five sustainability principles (strong and just society, good governance, sustainable economy, working within environmental limits and using sound science responsibly). The paper argues that if food tourism is to deliver its purported sustainable benefits, the policy environment must cultivate significant social capital through the cooperation of different industries with varying needs, motivations and challenges through joint marketing schemes, more localised distribution channels and enhanced policy engagement. Scotland and Wales are more successful than England, but overall food and tourism are not yet in effective partnership.
A Time-Series Analysis of the Real Wages-Employment Relationship

In this paper, the theory of covariance-stationary stochastic processes is used in order to investigate the sign and the significance of the relationship between employment and real wages. It is shown that when appropriate distributed lags are estimated the data suggest that employment and real wages are negatively correlated. The response appears to be non-contemporaneous and statistically significant.
Randomized phase 3 trial of ombitasvir/paritaprevir/ritonavir for hepatitis C virus genotype 1b–infected Japanese patients with or without cirrhosis

GIFT‐I is a phase 3 trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of a 12‐week regimen of coformulated ombitasvir (OBV)/paritaprevir (PTV)/ritonavir (r) for treatment of Japanese hepatitis C virus genotype 1b–infected patients. It consists of a double‐blind, placebo‐controlled substudy of patients without cirrhosis and an open‐label substudy of patients with compensated cirrhosis. Patients without cirrhosis were randomized 2:1 to once‐daily OBV/PTV/r (25 mg/150 mg/100 mg; group A) or placebo (group B). Patients with cirrhosis received open‐label OBV/PTV/r (group C). The primary efficacy endpoint was the rate of sustained virological response 12 weeks posttreatment in interferon‐eligible, treatment‐naive patients without cirrhosis and hepatitis C virus RNA ≥100,000 IU/mL in group A. A total of 321 patients without cirrhosis were randomized and dosed with double‐blind study drug (106 received double‐blind placebo and later received open‐label OBV/PTV/r), and 42 patients with cirrhosis were enrolled and dosed with open‐label OBV/PTV/r. In the primary efficacy population, the rate of sustained virological response 12 weeks posttreatment was 94.6% (106/112, 95% confidence interval 90.5‐98.8). Sustained virological response 12 weeks posttreatment rates were 94.9% (204/215) in group A, 98.1% (104/106) in group B (open‐label), and 90.5% (38/42) in group C. Overall, virological failure occurred in 3.0% (11/363) of patients who received OBV/PTV/r. The rate of discontinuation due to adverse events was 0%‐2.4% in the three patient groups receiving OBV/PTV/r. The most frequent adverse event in patients in any group was nasopharyngitis. Conclusion: In this broad hepatitis C virus genotype 1b–infected Japanese patient population with or without cirrhosis, treatment with OBV/PTV/r for 12 weeks was highly effective and demonstrated a favorable safety profile. (Hepatology 2015;62:1037‐1046)
Chain-wide consequences of transaction risks and their contractual solutions : managing interdependencies in differentiated agri-food supply chains

Agri-food supply chains are characterized by strong interdependencies between the different stages. These interdependencies may lead to risk-spillovers, as when a downstream company is exposed to risks resulting from activities further upstream in the supply chain. For example, a change in the formula used to calculate the price in a farmer-processor transaction, may reduce incentives for farmers to produce high quality products. This can increase the risks that low quality products are exchanged in the processor-retailer transaction. The present thesis has examined the challenges which companies face in managing such interdependencies and associated transaction risks.More specifically, it has examined: (1), how risks arise in the supply chain as a result of the interdependencies between the various transactions making up the supply chain; and (2), what types of governance solutions are suitable for supply chain companies to implement in order to reduce or eliminate their exposure to these risks. Mainly economic risks resulting from conflicts of interests between the supply chain companies have been considered. Both a theoretical and an empirical approach have been used in the thesis. The theoretical approach is largely grounded within Transaction Cost Economic (TCE) literature. Empirical research has been conducted in a specific sub-section of the agri-food sector: the pork meat industry. Transactions have been examined between the companies operating in pork supply chains in various EU countries as well as in Brazil. Based on the analyses presented in the four studies of the thesis, various types of strategies have been identified which managers can use to minimize, alter, transfer or share their exposure to risk in the supply chain. These strategies include: (1), the use of specific provisions in contracts with suppliers or buyers (e.g., to fix prices or not); (2), the balancing of supply and demand side contract provisions; (3), the use of risk pooling vehicles, like jointly managed quality management systems or collective brands. Furthermore, the conditions under which these strategies should be employed have been identified. Compared to previous research, this thesis discusses more detailed strategies and considers the consequences of their use for the whole supply chain.
Water Conflicts and River Basins: The Contradictions of Comanagement and Scale in Northeast Thailand

Questions of geographic scale, social conflicts, and shifting socioecological contexts are central to the prospects for and obstacles to comanagement of river basins. While thinking of a river basin as an environmental resource amenable to comanagement may have certain conceptual and practical advantages, the political and socioeconomic obstacles to creating effective comanagement regimes are substantial. The thorniest dilemmas involve devising effective institutions for managing water resources in basins characterized by intractable ecological conflict and within a national (and international) political-economic context that demands ever more rapid resource exploitation. These hurdles are compounded by the manner in which different actors are embedded within and contribute to socioecological processes linked--both materially and discursively--to multiple geographical scales. The comanagement and scale quandaries presented in the case of the Nam Phong basin in Northeast Thailand are characteristic of many river basins, and may provide a useful example for similar efforts to construct viable management regimes at a basin scale.
Exploring the Moderating Effects of Value Offerings Between Market Orientation and Performance in Tourism Industry

Market orientation as a business strategy has recently been adopted in the travel and tourism industry, as well as other industries, to enhance performance. Value offerings have also emerged as a new research interest within the strategic marketing domain. Based on the theory of strategy–environment fit, this study investigates the relationship between market orientation (i.e. customer and competitor orientations) and performance, and the moderating role of value offerings (i.e. service emphasis and price emphasis), using a sample of 132 Taiwanese travel agencies. The research results obtained from hierarchical regression analyses indicate that only both customer and competitor orientations, but not value offerings, have positive and direct effects on performance. However, the results show that one dimension of value offerings, i.e. service emphasis, has a moderating role in the market orientation-performance relationship. The managerial implications of these results are also discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
French Industrial Relations in the New World Economy

Examining the traditionally predominant role of the state in shaping employment patterns and social policy in France, French Industrial Relations in the New World Economy analyzes the impact of globalization on French industrial relations. Looking at the changing economic context of industrial relations, this important text places particular emphasis on the notion of a shift from a national, Fordist form of employment regulation, to an international, post-Fordist form - examining in detail the impact of this shift on the role of the French state and on the balance of power between employer and trade union organizations. Including chapters on employer organizations, collective bargaining, the role of the state, and workplace representation, French Industrial Relations in the New World Economy explores this fascinating topic in detail and provides a detailed resource for postgraduates studying trade unions, industrial and employee relations, and industrial studies in general.
Autonomy, control and job advancement

Food retail is a major employer and growth sector. It is one in which gender segregation is evident with many shops reliant on part-time low paid women employees. Most of these employees are trying to combine care responsibilities and paid work. This research note explores findings from 55 interviews with women working in nine food retail businesses in Scotland. Analysis illustrates the ways shop assistants maximize their control over time to ensure that unpaid family and care work can be prioritized. By contrast supervisors find promotion brings constraints on time and autonomy.
Indian consumer style inventory and its role in predicting Indian mall patronage intention

The emergence of organised retail formats like malls in India has metamorphosed the retail scenario and transformed the consumers' shopping patterns. Consumer style inventory (CSI) has been successfully adapted for understanding consumers across various cultures. The scale has established efficacy in predicting consumer behaviour across various consumer domains. This study aims at adapting the CSI to Indian consumer market to understand the consumer shopping orientations. Further, this paper intends to study the relationship between consumer shopping orientations and the intention to mall patronage. The research employs exploratory factor analysis to see the applicability of the scales to Indian market. Step-wise regression analysis is performed to examine the role of CSI in predicting the mall patronage intention. It is envisaged that the results would provide valuable insights into the Indian consumers' shopping orientation and would serve as important inputs for mall marketing strategies.
Equity Risk Premiums (ERP): Determinants, Estimation and Implications - A Post-Crisis Update

Equity risk premiums are a central component of every risk and return model in finance and are a key input into estimating costs of equity and capital in both corporate finance and valuation. Given their importance, it is surprising how haphazard the estimation of equity risk premiums remains in practice. We begin this paper by looking at the economic determinants of equity risk premiums, including investor risk aversion, information uncertainty and perceptions of macroeconomic risk. In the standard approach to estimating equity risk premiums, historical returns are used, with the difference in annual returns on stocks versus bonds over a long time period comprising the expected risk premium. We note the limitations of this approach, even in markets like the United States, which have long periods of historical data available, and its complete failure in emerging markets, where the historical data tends to be limited and volatile. We look at two other approaches to estimating equity risk premiums - the survey approach, where investors and managers ar asked to assess the risk premium and the implied approach, where a forward-looking estimate of the premium is estimated using either current equity prices or risk premiums in non-equity markets. We also look at the relationship between the equity risk premium and risk premiums in the bond market (default spreads) and in real estate (cap rates) and how that relationship can be mined to generated expected equity risk premiums. We close the paper by examining why different approaches yield different values for the equity risk premium, and how to choose the “right” number to use in analysis. (In an addendum, we also look at equity risk premiums during the market crisis, starting on September 12, 2008 through December 31, 2008, and then track the shift the changes through September 30, 2009.)
Changes in the stretch reflex of the human first dorsal interosseous muscle during different tasks.

1. Subjects flexed the interphalangeal joint of the index finger against a lever which was mounted on the shaft of a torque motor. 2. There were two different tasks. In one, the subject attempted to maintain a constant finger position in the face of changing forces, whereas in the other the subject attempted to maintain a constant force while the motor moved the lever. 3. Each of the tasks was interrupted by ramp extensions. These evoked stretch reflexes which were recorded in the first dorsal interosseous (FDI) muscle electromyogram (EMG). 4. Long‐latency (55‐90 ms) reflex responses were larger during the ‘maintain position’ task than during the ‘maintain force’ task, although the ramp extensions began from a similar finger position, a similar flexing force, and with a similar amount of FDI EMG activity. 5. It is concluded that the nature of the task has an effect on the magnitude of the long‐latency stretch reflex.
Will parental influences affect career choice?: Evidence from hospitality and tourism management students in China

Purpose – This study aims to examine how the perceptions of hospitality and tourism management (HTM) undergraduates about their parental influences predict their career choice intention with regard to the hospitality and tourism (H&T) industry in China.Design/methodology/approach – A self‐administered questionnaire containing 22 parental influence attributes was given to both junior and senior students studying HTM programmes. Primary research on students' perceptions of parental influences on career choice has been undertaken in ten universities across five cities in China, with 566 valid samples acquired as a result.Findings – Three out of six parental influential factors derived from 22 attributes are determined as being the salient predictors for students' H&T career choice intention. Those three factors are “perceived parental supports of the H&T industry”, “perceived parental career concerns about welfare and prestige”, and “perceived parental barriers to career choice”. Demographic differences in p.
Familial multiple myeloma: a family study and review of the literature.

BACKGROUND The etiology of multiple myeloma (MM) remains obscure, although reports of familial clustering have implicated both a host susceptibility factor and environmental effects. Here we describe the medical histories of members of a family prone to MM. METHODS We developed a pedigree for an MM-prone family by using information obtained from a questionnaire. Protein immunoelectrophoresis of serum and urine from the proband and from 19 family members was performed to detect monoclonal immunoproteins. Peripheral blood obtained from the proband and from five relatives was subjected to standard cytogenetic studies to detect constitutional chromosomal abnormalities. Multifluor-fluorescence in situ hybridization (M-FISH) and standard FISH studies were performed on peripheral blood from the proband and from two other affected living relatives to determine their karyotypes and to detect clonal chromosomal abnormalities frequently seen in patients with MM. RESULTS Within this family, a sibship of seven included three individuals (including the proband) with histologically verified MM and two individuals with a monoclonal gammopathy of unknown significance (MGUS), as determined by immunoelectrophoresis of serum and urine. This family also had members with acute lymphocytic leukemia, malignant melanoma, and prostate cancer. In the family members tested, we detected no constitutional chromosomal abnormality. None of the three individuals analyzed by FISH had a deletion of the retinoblastoma (Rb-1) locus, which is frequently deleted in patients with MM, and only one (the proband) had a translocation involving chromosomes 11 and 14, a clonal abnormality commonly seen in MM. CONCLUSION The study of familial MM may provide insights into the pathogenesis and, ultimately, the control and prevention of MM and related disorders.
Hierarchical Nonlinear Orthogonal Adaptive-Subspace Self-Organizing Map Based Feature Extraction for Human Action Recognition

Feature extraction is a critical step in the task of action recognition. Hand-crafted features are often restricted because of their fixed forms and deep learning features are more effective but need large-scale labeled data for training. In this paper, we propose a new hierarchical Nonlinear Orthogonal Adaptive-Subspace Self-Organizing Map(NOASSOM) to adaptively and learn effective features from data without supervision. NOASSOM is extended from Adaptive-Subspace Self-Organizing Map (ASSOM) which only deals with linear data and is trained with supervision by the labeled data. Firstly, by adding a nonlinear orthogonal map layer, NOASSOM is able to handle the nonlinear input data and it avoids defining the specific form of the nonlinear orthogonal map by a kernel trick. Secondly, we modify loss function of ASSOM such that every input sample is used to train model individually. In this way, NOASSOM effectively learns the statistic patterns from data without supervision. Thirdly, we propose a hierarchical NOASSOM to extract more representative features. Finally, we apply the proposed hierarchical NOASSOM to efficiently describe the appearance and motion information around trajectories for action recognition. Experimental results on widely used datasets show that our method has superior performance than many state-of-the-art hand-crafted features and deep learning features based methods.