Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Functional Movement ScreenTM – Normative Values in Healthy Distance Runners

Abstract Recreational runners have an estimated overuse injury incidence rate of up to 79% and 90% for marathoners. A pre-participation screening tool that can identify risk for injury may help reduce overuse injury in runners. The Functional Movement Screen (FMSTM) is a reliable clinical tool used with athletes to help predict injury. To date, the FMSTM has not been used with endurance athletes. The purpose of this article is to establish normative FMSTM values for distance runners. 45 healthy runners performed the FMSTM. Descriptive statistics were calculated; independent t-tests were performed to examine the effect of gender, experience and injury on scores. A Chi-square test was used to evaluate whether significant differences in scores exist for any component of the FMSTM. The mean FMSTM score was 13.13±1.8. No significant differences in FMSTM scores were found between novice and experienced runners (p=0.71) or runners with a history of injury and those without (p=0.20). While male and female runners did not differ significantly in their total FMSTM score (p=0.65), significant differences were found in the deep squat (p<0.05), trunk stability push-up (p<0.001) and active straight leg raise components (p=0.002). This study provides normative values for FMSTM scores when testing uninjured distance runners.
What twenty years of regulations have to say about M&As of U.S. banks?

We extend the U.S. bank M&As literature by examining announcement returns for acquisitions of both listed and unlisted targets by U.S. banking firms for a long period of time from the eighties till to date. Over these decades there have been implemented several regulation changes, notably the Dodd-Frank Act that would be of interest to examine whether they have any impact, and if indeed they have to which direction, on value creation in M&As in the U.S. banking industry. Contrary to the conventional wisdom that bidding banks lose upon the announcement of a merger, we find positive abnormal returns for these firms that choose to acquire privately-held targets. Further, returns for acquirers in private offers do not depend on the method of payment, legislative changes, size, or geographical scope. However, we find that the use of a financial advisor on the part of the bidder can better explain the variation in abnormal returns for such offers. Our results are not influenced by any unobserved bidder-specific component or sample selection issues.
Reflux episodes and esophageal impedance levels in patients with typical and atypical symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease

Abstract To determine the relationship between baseline impedance levels and gastroesophageal reflux, we retrospectively enrolled 110 patients (54 men and 56 female; mean age, 51 ± 14 years) with suspected gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) who underwent 24-h multichannel intraluminal impedance and pH monitoring. Patients were stratified according to symptom (typical or atypical) and reflux types (acid reflux, nonacid reflux [NAR], or no abnormal reflux). Mean nocturnal baseline impedance (MNBI) were measured 3 cm (distal esophagus) and 17 cm (proximal esophagus) above the lower esophageal sphincter. Median distal esophageal MNBI was lower in the acid reflux group (1244 &OHgr;; 647–1969 &OHgr;) than in the NAR (2586 &OHgr;; 1368–3666 &OHgr;) or no abnormal reflux groups (3082 &OHgr;; 2495–4472 &OHgr;; all P < .05). Distal MNBI were negatively correlated with DeMeester score and acid exposure time. Atypical symptoms were more frequently associated with NAR than typical symptoms (P < .01). Among patients with positive symptom-association probability (SAP) for NAR, median proximal MNBI tended to be lower in patients with typical symptoms (median, 3013 &OHgr;; IQR, 2535–3410 &OHgr;) than in those with atypical symptoms (median, 3386 &OHgr;; IQR, 3044–3730 &OHgr;, P = .05). Thus, atypical GERD symptoms were more likely to be associated with NAR. The mucosal integrity of the proximal esophagus might be relatively impaired in GERD patients with typical symptoms for NAR.
Oocyte holding in the Iberian red deer (Cervus elaphus hispanicus): Effect of initial oocyte quality and epidermal growth factor addition on in vitro maturation

Current in vitro embryo production protocols in the Iberian red deer (Cervus elaphus hispanicus) need to be optimized; oocyte harvesting in situ followed by overnight holding could reduce the human effort and shipping costs. In our work, post-mortem ovaries were retrieved, and the oocytes were harvested and allocated to G1 group (good quality) or G2 + G3 group (low quality). The oocytes were separately subjected to immediate in vitro maturation (IVM) or held overnight in a holding medium composed of 40% of TCM 199 with Earle's salts, 40% TCM 199 with Hanks' salts and 20% fetal bovine serum (FBS), at room temperature (16 hr). In vitro maturation was carried out in a basal medium supplemented or not with 50 ng/ml of epidermal growth factor (EGF). Our data showed that addition of EGF to the maturation medium increases the percentage of G1 oocytes reaching metaphase II (3.9% vs. 50%, basal vs. EGF; p < .001) and decreased their degeneration rate (69.9% vs. 22.2%, basal vs. EGF; p < .01) when oocytes were immediately matured. Overnight holding increased the meiotic competence of G1 oocytes (37.5% matured in basal medium) and EGF increased prophase arrest in G2 + G3 oocytes (16.1% vs. 38.8% in germinal vesicle [GV] stage in basal medium vs. EGF added medium; p < .05). Our data demonstrate that oocyte holding can be used in Iberian red deer oocytes. Interestingly, EGF addition increases the oocytes' meiotic competence in immediately matured oocytes but not after oocyte holding depending upon initial oocyte quality.
Islamic Banking: An Ultimate Source of Financial Inclusion

Shariah Shariah Qardal-Hassanah Keywords— Qard-alHassanah Shariah riba Gharaar for further details see Shariah Shariah see inter alia A. Intellectual Capital (IC) World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Economics and Management Engineering Vol:11, No:8, 2017 2128 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 11(8) 2017 scholar.waset. org/1307-6892/10007919 In te rn at io na l S ci en ce I nd ex , E co no m ic s an d M an ag em en t E ng in ee ri ng V ol :1 1, N o: 8, 2 01 7 w as et . o rg /P ub lic at io n/ 10 00 79 19 Shariah Shariah Shariah Shariah A. Sample B. Dependent Variable Shariah Zakat Sadaqah Waqf C. Independent Variables A. Descriptive Statistics World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Economics and Management Engineering Vol:11, No:8, 2017 2129 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 11(8) 2017 scholar.waset. org/1307-6892/10007919 In te rn at io na l S ci en ce I nd ex , E co no m ic s an d M an ag em en t E ng in ee ri ng V ol :1 1, N o: 8, 2 01 7 w as et . o rg /P ub lic at io n/ 10 00 79 19 Stats Mean Std. Dev. Minimum Maximum Skewness Kurtosis B. Regression Analysis R2 R2 World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Economics and Management Engineering Vol:11, No:8, 2017 2130 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 11(8) 2017 scholar.waset. org/1307-6892/10007919 In te rn at io na l S ci en ce I nd ex , E co no m ic s an d M an ag em en t E ng in ee ri ng V ol :1 1, N o: 8, 2 01 7 w as et . o rg /P ub lic at io n/ 10 00 79 19 World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology International Journal of Economics and Management Engineering Vol:11, No:8, 2017 2131 International Scholarly and Scientific Research & Innovation 11(8) 2017 scholar.waset. org/1307-6892/10007919 In te rn at io na l S ci en ce I nd ex , E co no m ic s an d M an ag em en t E ng in ee ri ng V ol :1 1, N o: 8, 2 01 7 w as et . o rg /P ub lic at io n/ 10 00 79 19
Have Clinical Teaching Effectiveness Ratings Changed with the Medical College of Wisconsin's Entry into the Health Care Marketplace?

Medical schools, as competitors in today’s health care marketplace, have the challenge of training future physicians while increasingly relying on clinical revenues. Is teaching compatible with competitive managed care in the future of health care? Skeff, Bowen, and Irby argue that teaching takes time and that its values must be re-emphasized as a core mission of medical schools. Medical education researchers have reported diminishing amounts of time available for physicians’ educational responsibilities to both residents and medical students. Student evaluations reveal that there has been less time available for them in more recent years. Thus, time impacts on education have been documented, but the critical issue to be investigated is whether the quality of teaching has been compromised. As a large, private medical school, the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) has not escaped the grasp of today’s competitive health care environment. On December 31, 1995, the John L. Doyne Hospital (JLDH), formerly Milwaukee County General Hospital, was closed. While this facility (a primary practice and clinical teaching site) was purchased by a private adult not-for-profit hospital, it’s sale nonetheless serves as a major demarcation point in MCW’s transition into today’s health care marketplace. Indigent care was now provided on a competitive contract basis. Our faculty formed a clinical practice group to enhance their competitive position in this evolving health care environment. Declining federal support for graduate medical education led to decreased positions in selected specialties and their associated support of medical student education. While the multi-dimensional impact of these changes on medical education, at MCW and elsewhere, will take years to analyze, preliminary analysis can reveal whether the quality of clinical teaching has changed during this time period. This study, therefore, examined whether there have been changes in clinical teaching effectiveness ratings as clinicians at MCW compete for patients and revenue.
Risk factors for coronary artery disease in lean and obese women with the polycystic ovary syndrome

OBJECTIVE The evidence that some women with the polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) are hyperinsulinaemic has brought into question their risk of developing early coronary artery disease. We have focused on three cardiac risk factors which have been associated with hyperinsullnaemia by measuring glucose tolerance, fasting serum lipid concentrations and blood pressure in women with PCOS.
Flicker (1/f) noise generated by a random walk of electrons in interfaces

Flicker noise can be generated by a random walk of mobile electrons in interfaces via interface states. It is proposed that these electrons interact with surface phonons to form polarons, which have very low mobilities. The flicker-noise model is a general one and may be used to explain flicker noise on MOSFET's, clean Si surfaces, metallic resistors, grain boundaries, amorphous layers, electron tubes, metal-insulator-metal junctions, diodes, and transistors. The dependence of the noise intensity is calculated as a function of device parameters such as interface state density, source-drain current, source-drain voltage, gate voltage, oxide layer thickness, grain size, temperature, size of the cathode, diode current, base current, and the surface recombination in the emitter-base area. Hooge's parameter is calculated quantitatively for several devices.
The mechanism of the glyoxalase I reaction, and the effect of ophthalmic acid as an inhibitor.

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Concurrence of sarcoidosis and lung cancer: a diagnostic dilemma

The development of lung cancer in a patient with pulmonary sarcoidosis is recognised, but differentiation between the two conditions is not always easy.1 The concurrence of pulmonary sarcoidosis and primary or secondary lung tumours can cause a diagnostic dilemma and make preoperative staging difficult.2 We describe the use of positron emission tomography (PET) to confirm the diagnosis and provide accurate staging in a patient with sarcoidosis and lung cancer. A 68 year old man with a known pulmonary sarcoidosis presented with haemoptysis. Serial chest radiographs …
Characteristics of Müller glial cells in MNU-induced retinal degeneration

Abstract Retinal Müller glial cells have been shown to undergo reactive gliosis in a variety of retinal diseases. Upregulation of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) is a hallmark of Müller cell activation. Reactive gliosis after retinal detachment or ischemia/reperfusion is characterized by hypertrophy and downregulation of inwardly rectifying K+ (Kir) currents. However, this kind of physiological alteration could not be detected in slowly progressing retinal degenerations. The photoreceptor toxin N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU) leads to the rapid loss of cells in the outer nuclear layer and subsequent Müller cell activation. Here, we investigated whether Müller cells from MNU-treated mice exhibit reactive gliosis. We found that Müller cells showed increased GFAP expression and increased membrane capacitance, indicating hypertrophy. Membrane potential and Kir channel-mediated K+ currents were not significantly altered whereas Kir4.1 mRNA expression and Kir-mediated inward current densities were markedly decreased. This suggests that MNU-induced Müller cell gliosis is characterized by plasma membrane increase without alteration in the membrane content of Kir channels. Taken together, our findings show that Müller cells of MNU-treated mice are reactive and respond with a form of gliosis which is characterized by cellular hypertrophy but no changes in Kir current amplitudes.
[Classification of drug-related problems].

BACKGROUND Drug-related problems are prevalent and cause considerable patient morbidity and in some cases death, as well as increased health care expenditures. A classification system may contribute to identify such problems, and further to resolve and prevent them. MATERIAL AND METHODS A draft classification was circulated to a panel of physicians and pharmacists and comments were requested. Consensus was achieved after two subsequent hearing rounds where the structure, content and relevance of the draft were discussed. By means of mini cases the classification was validated concerning various professionals' understanding and interpretation of the problem categories. RESULTS The classification has a hierarchical structure with 6 main categories (drug choice, dosing, adverse reaction, interaction, wrong use and other) and 12 subcategories. The system is relevant for hospitals, general practices, nursing homes and pharmacies. Validation of the system revealed that a majority would assign identical categories to 9/10 cases. INTERPRETATION We propose a validated Norwegian classification system for drug-related problems. The systems may facilitate better and more systematic documentation and communication on such problems.
Digital banking, customer experience and bank financial performance : UK customers' perceptions

The purpose of this paper is to examine customers’ perceptions of digital banking (DB), customer experience, satisfaction, loyalty and financial performance (FP) in UK banks. ,The research consists of a survey of UK bank customers’ perceptions of the above themes; use of banks’ financial reports to obtain FP ratios; multivariate factor analysis; structural equation modelling; and analysis of variance tests to explore research hypotheses on the relationships among the study factors. ,The main factors which determine customer experience in DB are service quality, functional quality, perceived value (PV), employee-customer engagement, perceived usability and perceived risk. There is a significant relationship among customer experience, satisfaction and loyalty, which is related to FP. ,This study concentrates on UK bank customers which limits its generalisability to other banks globally. However, the fact that banks typically adopt common standards in bank financial management implies that the findings are potentially robust for global bank management. Replicating the study in banks in other countries will further enhance this robustness. ,Some significant effects of customer characteristics on the study factors were observed, which have useful implications for DB, bank marketing services and bank FP. ,Unlike previous studies, this study uses both Net Promoter Score and financial ratios as dependent variables, to provide a combined study of the relationships among 14 study factors, with implications for bank marketing and FP.
The impact of intellectual capital on performance: Evidence from the public sector

This paper investigates the influence of intellectual capital on organizational performance in the public sector and studies the interconnections between intellectual capital variables within the latter setting. It follows a quantitative research approach where data was collected from 371 employees in a public entity within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. The findings highlight the importance of human, social and organizational capital in enhancing performance in the studied organization. Furthermore, the results show that the examined forms of capital can be interconnected. These outcomes support the earlier findings on the positive impact of intellectual capital variables on performance and, provide valuable and rather rare insights on the latter interrelationships within the GCC public sector.
Potential effects of the Dutch net neutrality law on business models and innovation in the mobile telecommunication market

Disclaimer This document contains a student thesis (bachelor's or master's), as authored by a student at Eindhoven University of Technology. Student theses are made available in the TU/e repository upon obtaining the required degree. The grade received is not published on the document as presented in the repository. The required complexity or quality of research of student theses may vary by program, and the required minimum study period may vary in duration.
Selection and parameterization of cortical neurons for neuroprosthetic control

When designing neuroprosthetic interfaces for motor function, it is crucial to have a system that can extract reliable information from available neural signals and produce an output suitable for real life applications. Systems designed to date have relied on establishing a relationship between neural discharge patterns in motor cortical areas and limb movement, an approach not suitable for patients who require such implants but who are unable to provide proper motor behavior to initially tune the system. We describe here a method that allows rapid tuning of a population vector-based system for neural control without arm movements. We trained highly motivated primates to observe a 3D center-out task as the computer played it very slowly. Based on only 10–12 s of neuronal activity observed in M1 and PMd, we generated an initial mapping between neural activity and device motion that the animal could successfully use for neuroprosthetic control. Subsequent tunings of the parameters led to improvements in control, but the initial selection of neurons and estimated preferred direction for those cells remained stable throughout the remainder of the day. Using this system, we have observed that the contribution of individual neurons to the overall control of the system is very heterogeneous. We thus derived a novel measure of unit quality and an indexing scheme that allowed us to rate each neuron's contribution to the overall control. In offline tests, we found that fewer than half of the units made positive contributions to the performance. We tested this experimentally by having the animals control the neuroprosthetic system using only the 20 best neurons. We found that performance in this case was better than when the entire set of available neurons was used. Based on these results, we believe that, with careful task design, it is feasible to parameterize control systems without any overt behaviors and that subsequent control system design will be enhanced with cautious unit selection. These improvements can lead to systems demanding lower bandwidth and computational power, and will pave the way for more feasible clinical systems.
An analysis of high-cost users at an Australian public health service organization

High-cost users generate extremely high costs when compared with average users in the same diagnostic-related group (DRG). They represent a major financial loss for a health service organization. The research was conducted using an area health service patient database for online analytical processing to produce descriptive statistics and graphs of 'high-cost' and 'non-high-cost users'. Trends and patterns were identified across key variables derived from clinical, financial and operational categories. The main results are: • 20% of costs are spent by 3% of the population; • elective admission is higher in the high-cost group; • tracheostomy has the most number of cases and is the most expensive DRG; • LOS is mostly longer for complex cases however, high costs can be attributed to other factors. In conclusion, these findings are potentially useful to patients, medical staff, management and health service decision-makers. The limitation of this study is the exclusion of profitability.