Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography in tricuspid valve annuloplasty - 15 years follow-up (1988-2003)

Objectives: Tricuspid valve regurgitation is usually secondary and results from the changes in geometry of tricuspid annulus, dilatation or overload of right atrium and right ventricle. The aim of the study was the assessment of early and long-term results of tricuspid valve annuloplasty performed in the Department of Cardiac Surgery in Lodz, Poland between 1988-2003. Design: The study group consisted of 267 patients with tricuspid valve regurgitation. Tricuspid valve annuloplasty was performed using two methods: De Vega in 70 patients (26.2%) and Revuelta in 197 patients (73.8%). All patients were referred to tricuspid surgery on the ground of classic echocardiography and in 92 cases transoesophageal echocardiography was necessary to verify diagnosis. Intraoperative transoesophageal echocardiography was performed in 162 patients (60,7%). Results: Throughout the long-term follow-up rates of patients with good result of tricuspid annuloplasty were: 86% after 5 years, 45% after 12 years, and 40% after 15 years. Since 1997, due to excellent results, tricuspid annuloplasty has been performed using Revuelta procedure only. Within 6-years follow-up after tricuspid annuloplasty a necessity of reoperation was observed in 19 patients (7.1%) from a subgroup without intraoperative transoesophageal echocardiography and in only 2 (0.75%) from a subgroup with transoesophageal echocardiography monitoring. Conclusion: Intraoperative transoesophageal echocardiography seems to be a method of choice in assessment of tricuspid annuloplasty efficacy which was confirmed by the long-term outcomes. Tricuspid valve annuloplasty using Revuelta procedure, intraoperatively verified by transoesophageal echocardiography, is currently a standard method in our department. Pulmonary hypertension and deteriorated systolic and diastolic right ventricular function yield with worse long-term results.
Sociodemographic profile of poisoning cases

Acute poisoning is an important medical emergency and one of the causes of death. A thorough knowledge of the profile of the victim is essential for management and prevention of poisoning. The present paper evaluates pattern of poisoning cases including deaths over a period of two years from 1999 to 2001 in Berhampur, Orissa. 53.3% of the cases were male with male to female ratio 1.14:1. Peak incidence was observed in the age group 21–30 years(124 cases). More than four-fifth of the cases belonged to medium socioeconomic status and 58.1% cases were from rural areas. Majority of the victims were literate and married outnumbered the unmarried cases. Occurrence of poisoning was more common in day time and during Summer season. Organophosphate compounds was the most commonly (22.9%) abused substance. Based on these findings preventive measures like restriction of sale and strengthening the legislature on availability of poison, promoting poison information center etc have been put forward.
Landscape Changes and Fragmentation Analysis in a Guinea Savannah Ecosystem: Case study of Talensi and Nabdam Districts of the Upper East region, Ghana

Landcover change is an observed natural change dynamics at both the local and regional levels. However, its scales are exacerbated by human interaction with its natural environment. The study examines these spatio-temporal changes in landcover and the level to which the change is accompanied by fragmentation of the identifiable cover types in the Talensi and Nabdam districts in Northern Ghana. The research uses digital classification of Landsat satellite imagery for 1999 and 2007 to produce the cover types which results in good accuracy levels of 66.39% and 63.03% respectively. Fragmentation analysis of the landscape was computed using FRAGSTATS® software for categorical maps obtained from the classified landcover maps for the two years. All cover types increased marginally. However, Bare areas decreased by as much as 17.17% and that of water decreased from 3% to 1%. The changing landscape involving conversions within and among various cover types is accompanied by fragmentation in all classes but more pronounced in the Bare class. The Bare class type which has more patches corresponds to the class with increased cover size and rather strangely decreases in the mean path size.
Marker assisted introgression of opaque2 gene into herbicide resistant elite maize inbred lines

Marker assisted selection in combination with conventional breeding can greatly accelerate the introgression of modified opaque2 genotype into herbicide resistant maize. By combining these two approaches, time and costs are greatly minimized. The application of opaque2 allele specific SSR markers was done on materials already undergoing selection in a breeding program for converting herbicide resistant maize lines into quality protein maize (QPM) which is the equivalent of modified opaque2 phenotype. The breeder had selected QPM lines using the light table in the previous cycle and we used leaf samples to extract DNA for analysis of the presence of the opaque2 gene using SSR markers. Two co-dominant SSR markers phi057 and umc1066 and a dominant marker phi112 were used. Umc1216, a modifier marker was also tested in combination with the opaque2 markers with the objective of using the marker to select for modifiers for the opaque2 phenotype. The modified FTA paper technology protocol was applied in field sampling. The results showed 97% of the lines were opaque2 while 3% were non-opaque2. Both methods of conventional breeding using light table and marker assisted selection (MAS) were comparable. However, the application of SSR markers and the FTA technology offers the breeder a fast, time saving, reliable and less labour intensive method of screening QPM maize during the early growing stages instead of having to wait to screen the kernels on the light table after harvesting. Moreover, the routine biochemical analysis for high lysine and tryptophan levels need not be carried out at each backcross since the presence of the opaque2 gene is confirmed with markers.
Random mixtures of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon spectra match interstellar infrared emission

The mid-infrared (mid-IR; 5–15 μm) spectrum of a wide variety of astronomical objects exhibits a set of broad emission features at 6.2, 7.7, 8.6, 11.3, and 12.7 μm. About 30 years ago it was proposed that these signatures are due to emission from a family of UV heated nanometer-sized carbonaceous molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), causing them to be referred to as aromatic IR bands (AIBs). Today, the acceptance of the PAH model is far from settled, as the identification of a single PAH in space has not yet been successful, and physically relevant theoretical models involving true PAH cross sections do not reproduce the AIBs in detail. In this paper, we use the NASA Ames PAH IR Spectroscopic Database, which contains over 500 quantum-computed spectra, in conjunction with a simple emission model, to show that the spectrum produced by any random mixture of at least 30 PAHs converges to the same kernel-spectrum. This kernel-spectrum captures the essence of the PAH emission spectrum and is highly correlated with observations of AIBs, strongly supporting PAHs as their source. Furthermore, the fact that a large number of molecules are required implies that spectroscopic signatures of the individual PAHs contributing to the AIBs spanning the visible, near-IR, and far-IR spectral regions are weak, explaining why they have not yet been detected. An improved effort, joining laboratory, theoretical, and observational studies of the PAH emission process, will support the use of PAH features as a probe of physical and chemical conditions in the near and distant Universe.
Genetic diversity in the mtDNA control region and population structure in the Sardinella zunasi Bleeker

We investigated the genetic structure and phylogeographical patterns of Sardinella zunasi in Northwestern Pacific. The mitochondrial DNA control region was sequenced for 77 individuals of S.zunasi from four localities over most of the species range. A total of 215 polymorphic sites (72 parsimony informative) and 69 haplotypes were found in the 77 individuals. Three distinct lineages were detected, which might have diverged in the marginal seas during Pleistocene low sea levels. The demographic history of S. zunasi was examined using neutrality tests and mismatch distribution analysis. The results suggested a late Pleistocene population expansion for S. zunasi. Contrary to homogenization expectation, there were strong differences in the geographical distribution of the three lineages. Analyses of molecular variance and the population statistic ST also revealed significant genetic structure among populations of S. zunasi. These results indicate that gene flow in S. zunasi is far more spatially restricted than predicted by the potential dispersal capabilities of this species.
Word accents in the Orsa dialect and in Orsa Swedish

A preliminary experiment was carried out to test the hypothesis that fundamental frequency (Fq) patterns marking the contrast between the grave and acute tonal word accents are common to the Orsa dialect and Orsa Swedish as used by bilingual speakers. One single speaker produced minimal word pairs with three different degrees of sentence stress (prefocal, focal and postfocal). The results indicated that the accent contrast was preserved at low degrees of sentence stress and demonstrated a basic similarity of FO peak timing and overall contour shapes between the t»>o varieties.
On the implementability condition in agency models

This paper considers standard agency models, and provides a new necessary and sufficient condition for the agent’s action to be implementable. The new condition works best when we are interested in implementability of the first-best action, which is an interesting question to ask if we introduce a possibility of renegotiation. We derive some economic sufficient conditions of implementability of the first-best action. We also show that our condition is applicable to other models than the standard agency models, such as multi-agency models and an adverse selection model where the principal can observe a signal of the agent’s type ex post.
Number 1 , June 2004 PARAMETER HETEROGENEITY IN THE NEOCLASSICAL GROWTH MODEL : A QUANTILE REGRESSION

In this study we examine the issue of parameter heterogeneity in the neoclassical growth model using a quantile regression estimator. Using cross-sectional data on 86 countries covering the period from 1960 to 2000, we estimate a version of the growth model of Mankiw, Romer and Weil (1992). We first estimate the model by OLS. We find that the model is quite successful in explaining the growth empirics of the “average” country. We next estimate the model using quantile regression. The results of quantile regression are at odds with the OLS results. We find evidence of partial parameter heterogeneity. Countries whose growth rates are in the higher quantiles respond differently to investment in human and physical capital than do countries whose growth rates are in the lower quantiles. The neoclassical model predicts conditional convergence. The results from the quantile regression do not fully confirm this prediction. We find that convergence is not a generalized phenomenon across the conditional growth distribution, and, in particular, is not characteristic of countries in the lower quantiles. This suggests that an endogenous growth model, where government policies play a more decisive role in shaping the growth process, may be more suitable to describe growth in the lower tail of the distribution, whereas growth in the middle and higher quantiles is better described by the neoclassical model.
Capital Mobility: An Application of Savings-Investment Link for Tunisia

The paper examines the degree of capital mobility in Tunisia for 1970 to 2009 period, using Feldstein and Horioka (1980) method of savings and investment comovement. We apply ARDL bound test to assess comovement between savings and investment; and to compute the savings retention ratio with FMOLS and DOLS as complements. The results reveal low capital mobility, in contrary to Maminingi (1997) who note perfect capital immobility in Tunisia. Hence, efforts should be made by the concerned authorities to evolve policies that will mobilize international capital into the country.
The pleasures and pains of studying the two-type Richardson model

This paper provides a survey of known results and open problems for the two-type Richardson model, which is a stochastic model for competition on $\mathbb{Z}^d$. In its simplest formulation, the Richardson model describes the evolution of a single infectious entity on $\mathbb{Z}^d$, but more recently the dynamics have been extended to comprise two competing growing entities. For this version of the model, the main question is whether there is a positive probability for both entities to simultaneously grow to occupy infinite parts of the lattice, the conjecture being that the answer is yes if and only if the entities have the same intensity. In this paper attention focuses on the two-type model, but the most important results for the one-type version are also described.
Demographic Factors and Individual Investor's Decision Making

Objective of the study is examining the impact of demographic variable on individual investor’s decision making. The 47 GN divisions located in Jaffna municipal council. Out of these 47 GN divisions, 20 divisions were selected on the basis of their census of population. 100 questionnaires collected for this study purpose. According to the Analysis researchers can conclude that respective R 2 value of 0.630 denotes that 63% of the observed variability in investment decision can be explained by the difference in variables namely gender, educational level, age, marital status and monthly income. Based on Pearson correlation analysis researchers found that demographic factors like age, marital status and monthly income have significant relationship with investment decision while some demographic factors like gender and educational level have no significant relationship with decision making. From one way ANOVA analysis revealed that there is a significant difference in investment decision making amongst individuals from different income groups. Key Words : Demographic factors, individual investor’s decision making,
Dislocation formation and albitization in alkali feldspars from the Shap granite

Abstract Orthoclase-rich alkali feldspars in the Lower Devonian Shap granite, northwest England, contain two generations of albite-rich feldspar. These have partially replaced earlier exsolution microtextures consisting of albite lamellae (coarse semicoherent albite films and fine coherent albite platelets) in tweed orthoclase. The earlier generation of replacive albiterich feldspar (∼Ab10 An9OrI) occurs together with orthoclase-rich feldspar (∼Ab10Or90) in veins that crosscut exsolution microtextures throughout grain interiors. This episode of recrystallization was mediated by magmatic fluids at ∼410 8C (estimated from two-feldspar geothermometry) and was driven by stored elastic strain energy, which was relatively homogeneously distributed throughout the microtextures. The later generation of replacive albite-rich feldspar, which is restricted to grain margins and is compositionally pure (Ab>99), was produced by magmatic-hydrothermal fluids at ∼370 °C. This generation of albite-rich feldspar does not crosscut exsolution microtextures and has selectively replaced volumes of highly elastically strained feldspar surrounding edge dislocations along semicoherent albite films. Marked differences in controls of the localization of the two generations of replacive albite-rich feldspar by pre-existing exsolution microtextures indicate that significant numbers of edge dislocations developed along albite films after the first phase of fluid-feldspar interaction and associated albitization but before the second phase. This relation indicates that edge dislocations formed between 410 and 370 °C. These observations have important implications for understanding the factors that control the interaction of alkali feldspars with fluids both in cooling igneous rocks and in clastic sedimentary rocks during diagenesis.
Social Diversity, Fiscal Policy, and Economic Growth An Empirical Study with State Wise Data in India

It is well-known that, in India there exist huge differences of income level across states. Explaining such interstate differences requires not only an understanding of the link between growth and public policies, but also an understanding of why growth-retarding public policies are chosen. In this study we examine the effect of social diversity on the pattern of state government expenditure, as well as the effect of state government expenditure on growth. From the regression results, we find that the development expenditure by state government has positive impact on growth, while social diversity, measured by the share of scheduled caste population and religious fractionalization index that we construct from Census India, is negatively related to the development expenditure. These results imply that social diversity retards economic performance through the channel of the expenditure policy of the Indian state government.
What types of texts and reading aids are good for Japanese graded readers

This study investigates what types of texts and reading -aids are suitable for Japanese graded readers. Thirty-one New Zealand university students of Japanese as a foreign language read one authentic text and four differently modified texts. The four differently modified texts were simplified texts, elaborated texts, texts with marginal glosses and texts with on-screen pop-ups. The participants completed an oral free-recall task and a short-answer reading comprehension test. Statistical analysis showed that their scores on reading tasks for the four modified texts were significantly higher than their scores on the tasks for the authentic texts. The participants gained the highest scores with the simplified texts, followed by the elaborated texts. Qualitative analysis was conducted on data from the free-recall protocols and exit -interview. Both quantitative and qualitative results suggest that simplified texts are the most suitable for graded readers targeted at developing students; elaborated texts play an important role for advanced students; key-word provision at the beginning of a text is a useful supportive feature for L2 Japanese readers; furigana -provision finely-tuned for learners’ levels can be more positively challenging in terms of kanji learning; and hard copy texts are preferred to texts on a computer screen for pleasure reading.
Distribution of vibrations of a double-leaf plate with random inhomogeneities

This paper shows how to compute vibrations of a double-leaf plate with random inhomogeneities in its components, two plates and reinforcement beams. The modelling method is based on the variational principle for elastic plates and beams. In addition to the deformation of individual components, the model includes contributions from junctions between components, e.g., how rigidly a beam is attached to a plate, and slightly twisted beams. The junction rigidity is included as potential energy in addition to the strain and the kinetic energies of the components. The random inhomogeneities are simulated as continuous smooth random functions of locations in the structure. A random function is realized using a predetermined probability density function, and an autocorrelation function over the dimension of the component. The vibration is computed for each set of random functions, and statistical properties of the simulations are analyzed. The random stiffness and the junctions affect the behaviour of the structure in a wide frequency range and a lower frequency range, respectively. The spectrum of surface vibration level shows changes in resonance frequencies depending on the random functions. Further relationship between the vibrations and the distributions of the random functions will be presented.
Term Structure Forecasts of Long-Term Consumption Growth

Abstract Relying on a simple general equilibrium model of the term structure, we show that both nominal yields and real consumption growth rates can be affine in the unobservable state variables. We can then express real consumption growth rates in terms of nominal yields rather than the unobservable state variables with the coefficients of the resultant forecasting relation being endogenously determined by the term structure model. Using term structure data over the 1985 to 2000 sample period, the empirical evidence is consistent with our model more accurately predicting real consumption growth rates than a regression model based on the term spread.
Molecular Localization of Epstein Barr Virus and Rb Tumor Suppressor Gene Expression in Tissues from Prostatic Adenocarcinoma and Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia

Background Epstein- Barr virus (EBV) is a ubiquitous in that infecting more than 90% of adult population worldwide. Recently, EBV has been linked to the development of variety of human malignancies including prostate tissues that range from benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) to prostatic adenocarcinoma (PAC). Somatic point mutations in Rb gene have been detected in prostate cancer and are involved in progression steps of prostate carcinogenesis. Objective: To analyze the distribution and impact of concordant Rb expression and latent EBV infection on a group of prostate adenocarcinoma and benign prostatic hyperplasia . Patients and methods : Seventy- two (72) formalin-fixed, paraffin- embedded prostatic tissues were obtained in this study; (40) biopsies from prostatic carcinoma and (20) from benign prostate hyperplasia as well as (12) apparently normal prostatic autopsies control group. Detection of EBV-EBERs was done by ultra sensitive version of in situ hybridization method where as immunohistochemistry detection system was used to demonstrate the expression of Rb gene. Results: Detection of EBV-EBERs -ISH reactions in tissues with PAC was observed in 19 out of 40 (47.5%), while in the tissues from BPH was detected in 10% (2 out of 20). No EBV-EBERs positive – ISH reaction was detected in healthy prostate tissues in the control group. The differences between the percentages of EBERs detection in tissues PAC and each of BPH & control groups were statistically highly significant (P value = < 0.0001). Positive Rb immunohistochemical (IHC) reactions were observed in 19 PAC cases (47.5%) and in 2 BPH cases (10%). Conclusions: Our results indicate that the EBV might contribute to the development of subset of prostate tumors. In addition, the significant percentage of expression of possible Rb gene as well as EBV in prostate adenocarcinoma could indicate for an important role of these molecular and viral factors in prostatic carcinogenesis. Key word: EBV; prostate adenocarcinoma, benign prostatic hyperplasia, in situ hybridization.