Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determinants of value added tax revenue in Kenya

Abstract. Past studies that have been undertaken on the responsiveness of Value Added Tax revenues to changes in GDP in Kenya have found a positive relationship. However, the studies omit key determinants of tax revenues, such as the nature of the tax system, institutional, demographic and structural features of the economy. Due to this omission, the estimated income elasticities are unreliable for planning purposes, a situation that might be responsible for the recurring budget deficits. The specific objectives of thepaperare to establish the determinants of Value Added Tax revenue and assess yields responseto changes in bases and reforms. The paper uses Paul Samuelson's (1955) the paper are fundamental general equilibrium analysis of the public sector to derive its main results. The estimation results show that GDP elasticity is less than the elasticities with respect to monetary GDP, suggesting the existence of an underground economy. It is also found that tax yields respond with substantial lags to changes in its determinants and revenues are sensitive to reforms and unusual circumstances. The study concludes that Kenya’s Value Added Tax revenue is very responsive to changes in its determinants especially international trade. There is the challenge of creating a stable Value Added Tax system. Keywords. Tax revenue, Elasticity, Tax system, Underground economy, Unusual circumstances. JEL. H25, H24, H27.
Transaction Sizes and Institutional Investor Trading Patterns around Earnings Announcements

The use of observed transaction sizes to differentiate between “small” and “large” investor trading patterns is widespread. A significant concern in such studies is spurious effects attributable to misclassification of transactions, particularly transactions originating from large investors. Such effects can arise unintentionally, strategically, or endogenously. We employ comprehensive records of institutional trading activity (i.e., “large” traders), including their order sizes and overall position changes, to assess the degree to which such misclassifications can give rise to spurious inferences about “small” and “large” investor trading activities. Our analysis shows that these institutions are heavily involved in small transaction activity. It also shows that they increase their order sizes substantially in announcement periods relative to non-announcement periods, presumably as an endogenous response to the earnings news. And, in the immediate earnings announcement period, transaction size based inferences about their directional trading are quite misleading--producing spurious “small trader” effects and, more surprisingly, erroneous inferences about “large trader” activity. JEL classification: G14
The Neural Systems that Respond to Emotional Stimuli with Phylogenetic and Ontogenetic Significance

Neural and behavioral responses to emotional stimuli often are discussed within an evolutionary framework. Although some of the information that elicits an emotional response is likely to have had evolutionary significance (e.g., snakes, spiders), many other stimuli would not have been evolutionarily relevant (e.g., guns, grenades). The present study re-analyzed data from two fMRI studies (Kensinger et al., 2007; Kensinger & Schacter, 2008) to examine whether the neural systems that respond to emotional stimuli differ depending upon whether those stimuli were of phylogenetic or ontogenetic significance. The results revealed that when stimuli were ontogenetic, activity was increased in regions of the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortices. By contrast, when stimuli were phylogenetic, activity was increased in a region spanning the lingual and fusiform gyri. These results suggest that there can be differences in how emotional stimuli are processed, and those differences can depend upon the stimuli’s evolutionary significance. Phylogenetic vs. Ontogenetic Emotion 3
The natural history of lone atrial fibrillation. A population-based study over three decades.

From 1950 to 1980, 3623 patients from Olmsted County, Minnesota, were found to have atrial fibrillation. Ninety-seven of these patients (2.7 percent), who were 60 years old or younger at diagnosis, had lone atrial fibrillation (atrial fibrillation in the absence of overt cardiovascular disease or precipitating illness), and their data were reviewed to determine the incidence of thromboemboli. Twenty of these patients (21 percent) had an isolated episode of atrial fibrillation, 56 (58 percent) had recurrent atrial fibrillation, and 21 (22 percent) had chronic atrial fibrillation. The total follow-up period was 1440 person-years, with a mean of 14.8 years per patient. The mean age at diagnosis was 44 years. Nineteen cardiovascular events occurred in 17 patients; 4 patients had strokes thought to be due to emboli from atrial fibrillation, and 4 had myocardial infarctions without overt evidence of previous coronary artery disease. The probability of survival at 15 years was 94 percent among the patients with lone atrial fibrillation. At 15 years, 1.3 percent of the patients had had a stroke on a cumulative actuarial basis. On an actuarial basis, there was no difference in survival or in survival free of stroke among the patients with the three types of lone atrial fibrillation (i.e., isolated, recurrent, and chronic). We conclude that lone atrial fibrillation in patients under the age of 60 at diagnosis is associated with a very low risk of stroke. This suggests that routine anticoagulation may not be warranted.
Mesodermal cell types induce neurogenesis from adult human hippocampal progenitor cells

Neurogenesis in the adult human brain occurs within two principle neurogenic regions, the hippocampus and the subventricular zone (SVZ) of the lateral ventricles. Recent reports demonstrated the isolation of human neuroprogenitor cells (NPCs) from these regions, but due to limited tissue availability the knowledge of their phenotype and differentiation behavior is restricted. Here we characterize the phenotype and differentiation capacity of human adult hippocampal NPCs (hNPCs), derived from patients who underwent epilepsy surgery, on various feeder cells including fetal mixed cortical cultures, mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) and PA6 stromal cells. Isolated hNPCs were cultured in clonal density by transferring the cells to serum‐free media supplemented with FGF‐2 and EGF in 3% atmospheric oxygen. These hNPCs showed neurosphere formation, expressed high levels of early neuroectodermal markers, such as the proneural genes NeuroD1 and Olig2, the NSC markers Nestin and Musashi1, the proliferation marker Ki67 and significant activity of telomerase. The phenotype was CD15low/–, CD34–, CD45– and CD133–. After removal of mitogens and plating them on poly d‐lysine, they spontaneously differentiated into a neuronal (MAP2ab+), astroglial (GFAP+), and oligodendroglial (GalC+) phenotype. Differentiated hNPCs showed functional properties of neurons, such as sodium channels, action potentials and production of the neurotransmitters glutamate and GABA. Co‐culture of hNPCs with fetal cortical cultures, MEFs and PA6 cells increased neurogenesis of hNPCs in vitro, while only MEFs and PA6 cells also led to a morphological and functional neurogenic maturation. Together we provide a first detailed characterization of the phenotype and differentiation potential of human adult hNPCs in vitro. Our findings reinforce the emerging view that the differentiation capacity of adult hNPCs is critically influenced by non‐neuronal mesodermal feeder cells.
Tacrolimus Versus Cyclosporine as Primary Immunosuppressant After Renal Transplantation: A Meta-Analysis and Economics Evaluation

Tacrolimus and cyclosporine are the major immunosuppressants for renal transplantation. Several studies have compared these 2 drugs, but the outcomes were not consistent. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy, safety, and pharmacoeconomics of cyclosporine and tacrolimus in the treatment of renal transplantation and provide evidence for the selection of essential drugs. Trials were identified through a computerized literature search of PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, Cochrane Renal Group Specialized Register of randomized controlled trials, and Chinese Biomedical database. Two independent reviewers assessed trials for eligibility and quality and then extracted data. Data were extracted for patient and graft mortality, acute rejection, and adverse events. Dichotomous outcomes were reported as relative risk with 95% confidence intervals. A decision tree model was populated with data from a literature review and used to estimate costs and quality-adjusted life years gained and incremental cost-effectiveness. Altogether, 6137 patients from 27 randomized controlled trials were included. The results of our analysis were that tacrolimus reduced the risks after renal transplantation of patient mortality, graft loss, acute rejection, and hypercholesterolemia. Nevertheless, tacrolimus increased the risk of new-onset diabetes. Pharmacoeconomic analysis showed that tacrolimus represented a more cost-effective treatment than does cyclosporine for the prevention of adverse events following renal transplant. Tacrolimus is an effective and safe immunosuppressive agent and it may be more cost-effective than cyclosporine for the primary prevention of graft rejection in renal transplant recipients. However, new-onset diabetes should be closely monitored during the medication period.
13 Visual and Emotional Salience Influence Eye Movements

In natural vision both stimulus features and cognitive/affective factors influence an observer’s attention. However, the relationship between stimulus-driven (bottom-up) and cognitive/affective (top-down) factors remains controversial: How well does the classic visual salience model account for gaze locations? Can emotional salience counteract strong visual stimulus signals and shift attention allocation irrespective of bottom-up features? Here we compared Itti and Koch’s [2000] and Spectral Residual (SR) visual salience model and explored the impact of visual salience and emotional salience on eye movement behavior, to understand the competition between visual salience and emotional salience and how they affect gaze allocation in complex scenes viewing. Our results show the insufficiency of visual salience models in predicting fixation. Emotional salience can override visual salience and can determine attention allocation in complex scenes. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that cognitive/affective factors play a dominant role in active gaze control.
Simultaneous variable selection for joint models of longitudinal and survival outcomes

Joint models of longitudinal and survival outcomes have been used with increasing frequency in clinical investigations. Correct specification of fixed and random effects is essential for practical data analysis. Simultaneous selection of variables in both longitudinal and survival components functions as a necessary safeguard against model misspecification. However, variable selection in such models has not been studied. No existing computational tools, to the best of our knowledge, have been made available to practitioners. In this article, we describe a penalized likelihood method with adaptive least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (ALASSO) penalty functions for simultaneous selection of fixed and random effects in joint models. To perform selection in variance components of random effects, we reparameterize the variance components using a Cholesky decomposition; in doing so, a penalty function of group shrinkage is introduced. To reduce the estimation bias resulted from penalization, we propose a two‐stage selection procedure in which the magnitude of the bias is ameliorated in the second stage. The penalized likelihood is approximated by Gaussian quadrature and optimized by an EM algorithm. Simulation study showed excellent selection results in the first stage and small estimation biases in the second stage. To illustrate, we analyzed a longitudinally observed clinical marker and patient survival in a cohort of patients with heart failure.
Soluble TREM2 induces inflammatory responses and enhances microglial survival

Triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (TREM2) is an innate immune receptor expressed in microglia in the brain. A soluble form of TREM2 (sTREM2) derived from proteolytic cleavage of the cell surface receptor is increased in the preclinical stages of AD and positively correlates with the amounts of total and phosphorylated tau in the cerebrospinal fluid. However, the physiological and pathological functions of sTREM2 remain unknown. Here, we show that sTREM2 promotes microglial survival in a PI3K/Akt-dependent manner and stimulates the production of inflammatory cytokines depending on NF-&kgr;B. Variants of sTREM2 carrying AD risk-associated mutations were less potent in both suppressing apoptosis and triggering inflammatory responses. Importantly, sTREM2 delivered to the hippocampi of both wild-type and Trem2-knockout mice elevated the expression of inflammatory cytokines and induced morphological changes of microglia. Collectively, these data indicate that sTREM2 triggers microglial activation inducing inflammatory responses and promoting survival. This study has implications for the pathogenesis of AD and provides insights into targeting sTREM2 pathway for AD therapy.
Under-reporting of food intake and body fatness in independent older people: a doubly labelled water study.

BACKGROUND there are no accurate methods for the assessment of food intake in older populations, under-reporting of intake being highly prevalent. There is controversy about which dietary assessment method and what person's characteristics are associated with greater under-reporting rates. OBJECTIVE to assess the correlation between under-reporting of energy intake (EI) and different percentages of body fat in independent older people. DESIGN cross-sectional study. SETTTING area assisted by the Family Health Program of the Ribeirão Preto Medical School, University of São Paulo, Brazil. SUJECTS one hundred volunteers aged 60-70 years. METHODS all volunteers had their body composition assessed by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry. In second phase, 41 volunteers were evaluated, representing the four quartiles of fat percentage. Total energy expenditure (TEE) was measured by the doubly labelled water method, and EI was assessed by 24-h recalls and a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). TEE and EI values, EI-to-TEE ratios and EI-TEE values were compared. RESULTS TEE was 2,220 ± 601 kcal, while the EI was 1,919 ± 602 kcal (24-h recall) and 2,119 ± 670 kcal (FFQ). The proportion of under-reporters was 31 and 40.5%, respectively. Under-reporting was more frequent in subjects with higher percentage of body fat and in females (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION under-reporting was more frequent among older persons with higher percentage of body fat in both methods of assessment of food intake. Older persons follow the same profile of under-reporting as younger adults.
Helminth parasites of swordfish (Xiphias gladius L.) from the northwest Atlantic Ocean.

William E. Hogans, John Brattey, Leslie S. Uhazy,* Fundy Isles Marine Enterprises, Ltd., P.O. Box 381, St. Andrews, New Brunswick EOG 2X0, Canada; and Peter C. F. Hurley, Marine Fish Division, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, P.O. Box 1006, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia B2Y 4A2, Canada. *Present address: Division of Biological Sciences, 106 Tucker Hall, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri 65211
Apo(a) isoforms do not predict risk for coronary heart disease in a Gulf Arab population

It is well recognized that blood lipoprotein A [Lp(a)] levels constitute an important risk factor for atherosclerotic vascular disease. In some populations, mainly Caucasian, Lp(a) levels and coronary heart disease (CHD) risk are determined by the pattern of apolipoprotein a [apo(a)] polymorphism. It is currently unclear if these observations apply to other populations and ethnic groups. The aim of the current study is to determine to what extent known apo(a) polymorphisms associate with development of CHD in a Kuwaiti Arab population. Serum Lp(a) levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and apo(a) isoforms determined by a high-resolution sodium dodecyl sulphate/agarose gel electrophoresis with immunoblotting in two groups of Kuwaiti subjects: healthy controls ( n = 140) and subjects with CHD (n=140). Blood lipids and anthropometric parameters were also determined in these subjects by standard methods. Serum Lp(a) levels were greater in those with CHD than in those in the healthy group (P<0·001). There was no consistent trend in the pattern of serum Lp(a) levels found with specific apo(a) isoforms in either group of subjects. There was, therefore, no simple relationship between the isoform pattern (and number of kringle-IV repeats) and serum Lp(a) concentration, unlike in certain other populations. Additionally, almost identical proportions of subjects in either group had singlebanded (homozygous, ~ 70%), double-banded (heterozygous, ~ 23%) and no-band (null, ~ 7%) phenotypes. The distribution of the five identified isoforms (F, S1, S2, S3 and S4) also was almost identical for both groups of subjects, whether homozygous or heterozygous, and whether classified into fast-moving (F, S1 and S2) or slow-moving (S3 and S4) isoforms. We conclude that the frequency and pattern of distribution of apo(a) phenotypes did not differ significantly between healthy control Kuwaiti Arab subjects and those with CHD. It is thus unlikely that an individual's apo(a) phenotype can predict both serum Lp(a) level and risk for CHD, irrespective of race and/or ethnic grouping.
Detection of heart calcification with electron beam CT: interobserver and intraobserver reliability for scoring quantification.

PURPOSE To assess interobserver and intraobserver reliability of three quantitative measures of coronary artery calcium burden: calcium "score," number of calcified lesions, and calcified area. MATERIALS AND METHODS Electron beam computed tomographic (CT) scanning was used in a series of 25 patients to detect coronary artery calcification. Scan results were reviewed for quality by a radiologist, then scored by two radiologic technologists and by another radiologist. RESULTS Many interobserver and intraobserver disagreements were noted on a lesion-by-lesion basis. Since most disagreements involved very small lesions, however, their impact was negligible for all three measures of calcium burden. CONCLUSION It is not useful for more than one observer to independently score a single CT examination obtained to detect cardiac calcification, even when the arteries are heavily calcified.
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Reduces Pain in Patients With Major Depression: A Sham-Controlled Study

This study evaluated the change in reported pain in patients with medication-resistant major depression receiving transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) compared with sham stimulation. In this study, 68 subjects with major depression were randomized to either TMS or sham stimulation. Repetitive TMS was delivered to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex at a frequency of 10 Hz in 5-second trains at 110% of the estimated prefrontal cortex threshold. The level of pain was assessed before, during, and after treatment using the Systematic Assessment for Treatment Emergent Effects (SAFTEE) item for pain in the muscles, bones, and joints. Compared with sham, TMS was associated with a significant (p < 0.05) reduction in the SAFTEE pain item during the study. The reduction in pain could not be explained by the antidepressant effects.
Rethinking traditional weight management programs: a 3-year follow-up evaluation of a new approach.

We evaluated the effectiveness of a nondiet approach designed to reduce restrained eating behaviors and improve self-acceptance and self-esteem. This approach also encourages participants to address eating and exercise behavior separately. Subjects were Conoco employees who participated in the Wellness Department's Eat For L.I. F.E. (Long-term change; Image of self; Fun; Enjoyment of eating) program and completed pre-participation and 3-year follow-up questionnaires (N = 79). Pre- and postsurvey data were used to assess participants eating behavior, dieting behavior, self-acceptance, self-esteem, level of physical activity, and demographic information. Mastery of the internally directed eating style was assessed during the program at 3 months, at the conclusion of the 6-month program, and at the 3-year follow-up. Analysis of variance indicated that Eat For L.I. F.E. participants were able to significantly decrease their restrained eating behavior and increase self-acceptance, self-esteem, and level of physical activity. Participants also were able to adopt many aspects of the nonrestrained, internally directed eating style and decrease their frequency of weighing-in behavior. These results indicate that strategies fostering internally directed eating behaviors may be more centrally related to an individual's well-being than programs supporting externally directed eating behaviors.
Prospective evidence of a circadian rhythm for out-of-hospital cardiac arrests.

OBJECTIVES Published studies have indicated a circadian rhythm in the occurrence of sudden cardiac death. However, these studies have involved either retrospective analyses of death certificates or analyses of data collected during studies of pharmacologic agents in selected populations. PURPOSE To determine whether a circadian pattern could be clearly demonstrated in a prospective study of out-of-hospital sudden cardiac death in a large, unselected population. DESIGN All adult cases of sudden death of presumed primary cardiac cause from a large urban population were prospectively evaluated over a 12-month period. The incidence of sudden cardiac death was analyzed using harmonic regression of the data tabulated by hour of the day. RESULTS During the year of study, 1019 consecutive primary cardiac arrests were analyzed. A significant circadian pattern was found (P less than .0001) with the frequency of cardiac arrests increasing dramatically from 6 AM until noon. CONCLUSIONS This prospective study of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest confirms the existence of a circadian rhythm. These data have important implications for future investigations concerning the pathophysiology of sudden cardiac deaths.
Chapter 2 Atg 8 Family Proteins — Autophagy and Beyond

In eukaryotic cells, macroautophagy is now recognised as the most important mechanism for degradation of long-lived proteins and complete organelles, thus enabling cells to sustain their function under conditions of stress, such as nutrient deprivation, hypoxia or the presence of intracellular pathogens (for recent reviews, see [1,2]). While the core machinery is conserved in all eukaroytes [3], it is becoming more and more evident that upstream regulation and interfacing with other cellular pathways can differ significantly, depending on the species and cell type investigated.