Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
IMPACT OF GOVERNMENT AGRICULTURAL POLICIES ON THE MAJOR STAPLE FOOD PRICES IN NIGERIA (1966 - 2011).

This study assessed the impact of government agricultural policies on the prices of major staple food in Nigeria. It described the trend of the major staple food prices and determined the effect of government agricultural policies on the major staple food prices in Nigeria. Secondary data were sourced from various organizations and used for this study. These data were transformed from their nominal value to real value and analyzed using descriptive statistics, unit root test, ordinary least square model, cochrane-orcutt, least absolute deviation estimators and simultaneous equation model. The study revealed that the prices of most of the major staple foods were at the peak value between 1991 and 1993 while their prices were at the lowest value between 1978 and 1983. The study observed that the price of cowpea is most volatile seconded by maize. The study further established that the prices of staple foods were inter-related. Also, it was showed that agricultural credit guarantee scheme funds (ACGSF), agricultural policies during structural adjustment period (SAP) and post-structural adjustment period (PSAP) were statistically significant while the agricultural input subsidy scheme was statistically insignificant. The study recommended painstaking formulation and implementation of agricultural policies and re-structuring of agricultural of input scheme.
Effects of TZD Use and Discontinuation on Fracture Rates in ACCORD Bone Study.

CONTEXT In trials, thiazolidinediones (TZDs) increase fracture risk in women, but the effects of discontinuation are unknown. OBJECTIVE The objective was to investigate the effects of TZD use and discontinuation on fractures in women and men. DESIGN This was a longitudinal observational cohort study using data from the Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) trial bone ancillary study. Duration of TZD use and discontinuation during ACCORD, assessed every 2-4 months at clinic visits, were modeled as time-varying covariates in proportional hazards models for occurrence of first non-spine fracture. PARTICIPANTS We studied a total of 6865 participants in ACCORD BONE. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Main outcome measures were centrally adjudicated non-spine fracture. RESULTS Average age was 62.4 (SD, 6.6) years; average duration of diabetes was 11.1 (SD, 7.8) years. Rosiglitazone was used by 74% and pioglitazone by 13% of participants. During a mean follow-up of 4.8 (SD, 1.5) years, 262 men and 287 women experienced at least one non-spine fracture. The fracture rate was higher in women with 1-2 years of TZD use (hazard ratio [HR] = 2.32; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.49, 3.62) or >2 years of TZD use (HR = 2.01; 95% CI, 1.35, 2.98), compared with no use. The fracture rate was reduced in women who had discontinued TZD use for 1-2 years (HR = 0.57; 95% CI, 0.35, 0.92) or > 2 years (HR = 0.42; 95% CI, 0.24, 0.74) compared with current users. TZD use and discontinuation were not associated with non-spine fractures in men. CONCLUSIONS TZD use was associated with increased non-spine fractures in women, but not men, with type 2 diabetes. When women discontinued TZD use, the fracture effects were attenuated.
Prevalence of overweight and obesity among children six to ten years of age in the north-east health region of Jamaica.

OBJECTIVE To estimate the prevalence and correlates of overweight and obesity among children six to ten years old in the North-East Health Region (NEHR) ofJamaica. METHODS Weights and heights were measured in a representative sample of 5710 children between the ages of six and ten years in 34 schools between October 2008 and March 2009. Overweight and obesity were defined as body mass index (BMI) Z-score > 1SD and >2SD, respectively based on the World Health Organization (WHO)-endorsed age and gender-specific growth standards for children. Point prevalence estimates of overweight and obesity were calculated. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were used to estimate associations between overweight and obesity and age, gender and school location. RESULTS Overweight and obesity prevalence among children six to ten years old in NEHR, Jamaica, was 10.6% and 7.1%, respectively. Overweight (OR = 1.11, 95% CI: 1.04, 1.18) and obesity (OR = 1.17, 95% CI: 1.08, 1.26) prevalence increased significantly with age. Overweight (OR = 1.51, 95% CI: 1.27, 1.80) and obesity (OR = 1.36, 95% CI: 1.11, 1.67) prevalence was significantly higher among girls than boys. Children attending rural-public schools had less risk of being overweight (OR = 0.57, 95% CI: 0.46, 0.70) and obese (OR = 0.35, 95% CI: 0.28, 0.44) when compared with urban-public schools and private schools. Both overweight (OR = 2.11, 95% CI: 1.60, 2.78) and obesity (OR = 1.68, 95% CI: 1.24, 2.28) were significantly more common among children attending private schools. After adjusting for age and gender the results still remained statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS Overweight/obesity prevalence among children six to ten years old in NEHR of Jamaica is 17.7% with older children and girls having higher rates. Children attending urban-public and private schools have higher prevalence than those attending rural schools. Appropriately targeted interventions are needed to combat this problem.
Public and Private Sector Wages: Co-Movement and Causality

This paper looks at public and private sector wages interactions since the 1960s in the euro area, euro area countries and a number of other OECD countries. The paper reports, first, a strong positive annual contemporaneous correlation of public and private sector wages over the business cycle; this finding is robust across methods and measures of wages and quite general across countries. Second, we show evidence of long-run relationships between public and private sector wages in all countries. Finally, causality analysis suggests that feedback effects between private and public wages occur in a direct manner and, importantly also via prices. While influences from the private sector appear on the whole to be stronger, there are direct and indirect feedback effects from public wage setting in a number of countries as well. We show how country-specific institutional features of labour and product markets contain helpful information to explain the heterogeneity across countries of our results on public/private wage leadership. JEL Classification: C32, J30, J51, J52, E62, E63, H50
Haematological malignancy: are patients appropriately referred for specialist palliative and hospice care? A systematic review and meta-analysis of published data

Haematological malignancies are complex diseases, affecting the entire age spectrum, and having marked differences in presentation, treatment, progression and outcome. Patients have a significant symptom burden and despite treatment improvements for some sub-types, many patients die from their disease. We carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the proportion of patients with haematological malignancies that received any form of specialist palliative or hospice care. Twenty-four studies were identified, nine of which were suitable for inclusion in the meta-analysis. Our review showed that patients with haematological malignancies were far less likely to receive care from specialist palliative or hospice services compared to other cancers (Risk Ratio 0.46, [95% confidence intervals 0.42–0.50]). There are several possible explanations for this finding, including: ongoing management by the haematology team and consequent strong bonds between staff and patients; uncertain transitions to a palliative approach to care; and sudden transitions, leaving little time for palliative input. Further research is needed to explore: transitions to palliative care; potential unmet patient needs; where patients want to be cared for and die; existing practices in the delivery of palliative and end-of-life care; and barriers to specialist palliative care and hospice referral and how these might be overcome.
Are teenagers at risk for developing cardiovascular disease in later life?

Abstract Background: The aim of this study is to measure the occurrences of the following risk factors: tobacco use, levels of physical activity, levels of physical inactivity, and body mass index (BMI) among adolescents in Trinidad. Methods: A two-stage random sampling process was used to select schools and students. Data were collected using a pretested self-administered questionnaire and included age, gender, ethnicity, tobacco use, levels of physical activity, levels of physical inactivity, BMI, and frequency of fast food consumption. Results: Overall, 44.6% of the 1896 adolescents already had more than two risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD). The most prevalent risk factor was the consumption of fast food (79.8%), while the least was smoking (12.0%). Out of the 75.4% physically active students, 47.6% spent more than 30 min in daily physical activity. In addition, 30.4% of the study population was overweight and obese, with the majority being 14 years of age (p=0.003). Overall, the overweight and obese students spent a significant amount of time watching television, playing video/computer games and talking on the phone, and frequently consumed fast food (p<0.001). Conclusion: The study found a significant number of teenagers in Trinidad presenting with more than two risk factors that may lead to CVD. Based on previous research, these findings have undoubtedly placed the students well within the models used to predict heart disease later in life.
Impairment of eyeblink conditioning in GluRδ2‐mutant mice depends on the temporal overlap between conditioned and unconditioned stimuli

Mice lacking the glutamate receptor subunit δ2 (GluRδ2) are deficient in cerebellar long‐term depression (LTD) at the parallel fibre–Purkinje cell synapses. We conducted delay and trace eyeblink conditioning with these mice, using various temporal intervals between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (US). During trace conditioning in which a stimulus‐free trace interval (TI) of 250, 100 or 50 ms intervened between the 352‐ms tone CS and 100‐ms US, GluRδ2‐mutant mice learned as successfully as wild‐type mice. Even in the paradigm with TI = 0 ms, in which the end of CS and onset of US are simultaneous, there was no difference between the GluRδ2‐mutant and wild‐type mice in their acquisition of a conditioned response. However, in the delay paradigm in which the 452‐ms CS overlapped temporally with the coterminating 100‐ms US, GluRδ2‐mutant mice exhibited severe learning impairment. The present study together with our previous work [Kishimoto, Y. , Kawahara, S. , Suzuki, M. , Mori, H. , Mishina, M. & Kirino, Y. (2001) Eur. J. Neurosci. ,13, 1249–1254], indicates that cerebellar LTD‐independent learning is possible in paradigms without temporal overlap between the CS and US. On the other hand, GluRδ2 and cerebellar LTD are essential for learning when there is CS–US temporal overlap, suggesting that the cerebellar neural substrates underlying eyeblink conditioning may change, depending on the temporal overlap of the CS and US.
Challenges in improving the quality of osteoporosis care for long-term glucocorticoid users: a prospective randomized trial.

BACKGROUND In light of widespread undertreatment for glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis (GIOP), we designed a group randomized controlled trial to increase bone mineral density (BMD) testing and osteoporosis medication prescribing among patients receiving long-term glucocorticoid therapy. METHODS Using administrative databases of a large US health plan, we identified physicians who prescribed long-term glucocorticoid therapy to at least 3 patients. One hundred fifty-three participating physicians were randomized to receive a 3-module Web-based GIOP intervention or control course. Intervention modules focused on GIOP management and incorporated case-based continuing medical education and personalized audit and feedback of GIOP management compared with that of the top 10% of study physicians. In the year following the intervention, we compared rates of BMD testing and osteoporosis medication prescribing between intervention and control physicians. RESULTS Following the intervention, intent-to-treat analyses showed that 78 intervention physicians (472 patients) vs 75 control physicians (477 patients) had similar rates of BMD testing (19% vs 21%, P = .48; rate difference, -2%; 95% confidence interval [CI], -8% to 4%) and osteoporosis medication prescribing (32% vs 29%, P = .34; rate difference, 3%; 95% CI, -3% to 9%). Among 45 physicians completing all modules (343 patients), intervention physicians had numerically but not significantly higher rates of BMD testing (26% vs 16%, P =.04; rate difference, 10%; 95% CI, 1%-20%) and bisphosphonate prescribing (24% vs 17%, P =.09; rate difference, 7%; 95% CI, -1% to 16%) or met a combined end point of BMD testing or osteoporosis medication prescribing (54% vs 44%, P =.07; rate difference, 10%; 95% CI, -1% to 21%) compared with control physicians. CONCLUSIONS In the main analysis, a Web-based intervention incorporating performance audit and feedback and case-based continuing medical education had no significant effect on the quality of osteoporosis care. However, dose-response trends showed that physicians with greater exposure to the intervention had higher rates of GIOP management. New cost-effective modalities are needed to improve the quality of osteoporosis care.
Structure of the parasites communities in two Erythrinidae fish from Amazon river system (Brazil).

This study compared the parasite communities of Hoplias malabaricus and Hoplerythrinus unitaeniatus from Amazon river system. Hoplias malabaricus were infected by Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, Piscinoodinium pillulare, Tetrahymena sp. , Urocleidoides eremitus, Braga patagonica, metacercariae of Clinostomum marginatum, Procamallanus (Spirocamallanus) inopinatus, larvae of Contracaecum sp. and larvae of Nomimoscolex matogrossensis. Hoplerythrinus unitaeniatus were also infected by these same species of protozoans, nematodes, digeneans and cestodes, except for Tetrahymena sp. and B. patagonica, which were replaced by Argulus pestifer, Urocleidoides sp. , Whittingtonocotyle caetei, Whittingtonocotyle jeju and Gorytocephalus spectabilis. For both hosts, I. multifiliis and P. pillulare were the predominant parasites. Most of the parasites presented an overdispersion. Parasite species richness, Brillouin diversity, evenness and Berger-Parker dominance were similar for the two hosts. The length and weight of H. malabaricus showed a positive correlation with the abundance of U. eremitus and Contracaecum sp. , while the weight of H. unitaeniatus showed a positive correlation with the abundance of I. multifiliis. The diversity of ectoparasites seemed to be influenced by the behavior of these two hosts. This was shown by the similar parasite communities and was characterized by low species diversity, low evenness and low richness, and by a high prevalence of ectoparasites.
Single-Cell Repertoire Analysis Demonstrates that Clonal Expansion Is a Prominent Feature of the B Cell Response in Multiple Sclerosis Cerebrospinal Fluid 1

Single-cell RT-PCR was used to sample CD19+ B cell repertoires in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) or viral meningitis. Analysis of amplified Ab H and L chain products served to identify the rearranged germline segment and J segment, and to determine the degree of homology for the H and L chain sequence of individual B cells. The B cell repertoire of viral meningitis CSF was predominately polyclonal, whereas B cell clonal expansion was a prominent feature of the IgG repertoire in three of four MS patients. Two dominant clonal populations in one MS CSF accounted for ∼70% of the IgG H chain V regions sequenced, while the corresponding IgM repertoires were more heterogeneous. One clonal B cell population revealed multiple L chain rearrangements, raising the possibility of a role for receptor editing in shaping the B cell response in some MS patients. The most immediate implications of identifying rearranged Ig sequences in MS B cells is the potential to accurately recreate recombinant Abs from these overrepresented H and L chains that can be used to discover the relevant Ag(s) in MS.
Cleansing indoor RFID tracking data

The Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has been increasingly deployed in indoor environments for object tracking and monitoring. However, the uncertain characteristics of RFID data, including noise and incompleteness hinder RFID data querying and analysis at higher levels. Hence, it is of paramount importance to cleanse the RFID data for such applications. This paper introduces our comprehensive research on cleansing RFID data in indoor settings. We focus on two inherent errors in such RFID data: false positives (unexpected cross readings) and false negatives (missing readings). In our proposed graph model based approach, we design a probabilistic distance-aware graph to represent the indoor topology, the deployment of RFID readers and their sensing parameters. We also augment the graph with transition probabilities that capture how likely objects move from one RFID reader to another. Based on the proposed graph, we design cleansing algorithms to reduce false positives and recover false negatives. In the learning-based approach, we propose an Indoor RFID Multi-variate Hidden Markov Model (IR-MHMM) to capture the uncertainties of indoor RFID data as well as the correlation of moving object locations and object's RFID readings. We solely use raw RFID data for the learning of the IR-MHMM parameters. Using the resulting IR-MHMM, the learning-based approach is able to deliver cleansing performance comparable to and even better than that of the graph model based approach, although the former requires much less prior knowledge than the latter.
Reversal of rocuronium with edrophonium during propofol versus sevoflurane anesthesia

Background: The use of volatile anesthetics for maintenance of anesthesia can enhance the action of non‐depolarizing muscle relaxants and interfere with the reversal of neuromuscular blockade. In this study, we studied the antagonism of rocuronium with edrophonium‐atropine during propofol‐ versus sevoflurane‐based anesthesia.
Association of Serum Uric Acid Level With Blood Pressure Variability in Newly Diagnosed Essential Hypertension

Serum uric acid (UA) is independently associated with hypertension and blood pressure (BP) variability (BPV) is associated with cardiovascular events and mortality in hypertensive patients. The aim of the present study was to assess the association of serum UA with BPV in 300 untreated essential hypertension patients (mean age 57.3±13.6 years). BPV was quantified as the standard deviation (SD) of the 24‐hour, daytime, and nighttime mean values obtained by using ambulatory BP monitoring. In correlation analysis, log UA values were found to be positively correlated with 24‐hour systolic BPV and nighttime systolic and diastolic BPV (Pearson coefficients of 0.246, 0.280, and 0.353, respectively; P<.001 for all). In multivariate analysis, log UA had an independent association with 24‐hour systolic BPV and nighttime systolic and diastolic BPV. This study show for the first time that increased serum UA is independently associated with BPV in untreated essential hypertension patients.
Interfacial micromorphology and tensile bond strength of dentin bonding systems after NaOCl treatment.

PURPOSE The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that NaOCl treatment of acid-etched dentin would not lower the tensile bond strength of adhesive resins, but would eliminate the hybrid layer. MATERIALS AND METHODS One hundred twenty teeth and three different bonding agents were used for SEM- and CLSM-visualization of the dentin-composite interface and for bond strength measurements. After etching with phosphoric acid, 75 dentin samples were pretreated with 10% NaOCl. The other 75 samples were etched only with phosphoric acid and were kept as controls. Composite was bonded to the pretreated surfaces with a bonding resin. RESULTS NaOCl-treated samples: hybrid layers were not visible, but resin tags and resin penetration through lateral branches of tubules were prominent. Layers of unfilled resin were not apparent for Gluma CPS and Prime & Bond 2.1. Hypochlorite treatment of acid-etched dentin resulted in reduced bond strengths for specimens bonded with Syntac and Gluma CPS, but such treatment increased bond strength for Prime & Bond 2.1 bonded specimens. CONCLUSION The removal of the collagen layer with NaOCl can enhance or decrease bond strengths, depending on the bonding agent used.
Analysis on Export Trade Effect of China and Countries along One Belt and One Road

In view of China export trade effect on countries along the “One Belt and One Road”, it used extended gravity model to analyze the question. In order to meet research objectives, it adds variables such as population, GDP per capita, market openness, and dummy variables on the basic of gravity model. The conclusions are as follows: (1) The trade effect between china and OBOR countries is obvious, and the trade complementariness are strong; (2) the result proves economic size multiplication, population scale multiplication, market openness, per capita GDP difference boot the effect, but distance between China and OBOR countries and whether the OBOR countries join the EU are negative influences; (3) Most of the OBOR countries are insufficient trade with China, which should be speeded up cooperation to improve the trade effect. Keywords—The One Belt and One Road; Gravity Model; Trade Effect; Trade Potential
Economists' Hubris – The Case of Business Ethics in Financial Services

This is the sixth article in the Economists’ hubris paper series, which aims to critically examine the practical applications of academic thinking. The focus of this article is business ethics, with a specific focus on the financial services industry. The main challenges that one faces in determining whether businesses do in fact act unethically, intentionally or otherwise, are that there are no universally agreed parameters for describing ethical behavior; that ethicality seems to be in the eye of the beholder; and that since we are relying solely on external data, and do not have access to the thinking processes that lead to different business decisions, we are unable to state categorically that the management knew ex-post that a given decision would result in an unethical outcome. Given these difficulties, this article suggests that firstly, while most businesses don’t necessarily set out to act unethically, when ethics and profitability collide the latter seems to win most of the time and secondly, that should companies decide to, or inadvertently, act unethically they have learned from the actions of western governments how to manage the ramifications. The increasing influence that businesses now have over those that monitor them, including governments and the media, could potentially lead to corporations becoming less concerned about the ethical ramifications of their actions and consequently result in the concept of business ethics becoming even less viable from a practical perspective.