Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of furosemide dose timing on bladder activity in oncology imaging with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose PET/CT

ObjectiveTo compare the effects of two furosemide administration protocols on bladder activity during 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) PET/computed tomography (CT) imaging. MethodsA total of 109 consecutive patients with known or suspected malignancy, meeting our inclusion criteria, were chosen over a discrete time period. Group 1 (n=39) received furosemide 20 mg intravenous 15 min before PET/CT imaging (i.e. approximately 45 min after 18F-FDG administration). Group 2 (n=45) received furosemide 20 mg intravenous 15 min after 18F-FDG. Group 3 (n=25) did not receive furosemide and served as controls. Bladder standard uptake values (SUVs) and volume, and liver SUV data were collected. ResultsRelative to the control group, both furosemide groups showed significantly lower mean and maximum SUV bladder activities (P<0.001), lower mean bladder-to-liver SUV ratios (P<0.001), larger mean bladder volumes (P<0.001) and higher proportions of bladder PET/CT image mis-registration. Patients tolerated earlier administration of furosemide (group 2) better relative to urinary urgency during imaging. ConclusionThe use of a relatively simple diuretic protocol can significantly lower bladder FDG activity and potentially improve image quality by reducing bladder activity artifacts and avoid invasive bladder catheterization. Administering furosemide earlier after FDG injection (i.e. 15 min) versus later (i.e. 15 min before imaging) appears to be better tolerated by patients.
STRUKTUR KEPEMILIKAN, KEBIJAKAN DIVIDEN, KEBIJAKAN UTANG DAN NILAI PERUSAHAAN

The aims of t his research i s to examine the effect of managerial ownership, insitutisional o wnership, dividend policy , and debt policy on firm value by including the variable size, growth and performance as the control variable (study at Manufacturing Companies Lisy t ing in Indonesian Stock Exchange since 2007 until 2009 period. The population in this study are all manufacturing companies listed on the Ondonesian Stock Exchange from 2007 until 2009 period . The sample in this study is manufacturing company according to the criteria established. Regression analysis was performed with b ased on the results of data analysis this study concludes some of the following: (1) Variable managerial ownershipis proven to affects the firm value, 2) Institutional ownership variable is not proven to affect the value of the company, (3) Dividend policy is not proven to affect the value of the company, (4) Debt policy not proven to effect on firm value (5) The size of the company is proved positive effect on firm value, (6) The growth of the company proved to affect the value of the firm (7) The performance of the company proved possitive to effect firm value. Key words: managerial ownership, institutional ownership, dividend policy, debt policy, company size, company growth, company performance and firm value.
Screening of antimalarial drugs: An overview

Efforts to discover and develop new antimalarial drugs have increased dramatically in recent years mainly because of resistance to existing antimalarial drugs. Selection of candidate drugs for clinical trials in man and the design of clinical protocols are based upon consideration of data from a battery of preclinical test systems. All compounds are assessed initially in one or more primary screening models. A compound which is considered 'active' by well established criteria in primary screening test is considered for further evaluation in successively more clinical tests. At the end of each stage of testing, a decision is taken to advance the compound to the next stage or discontinue it. Primary screening tests should have optimal sensitivity, a high degree of reproducibility, high throughput, requiring a minimum quantity of test compound and should bear low cost. As there is growing need for newer and more efficacious antimalarial drugs especially in tropical countries, more sensitive and economical screening models are needed. This review is an update of various conventional and latest in vitro and in vivo screening methods being used for evaluation of antimalarial compounds.
Did the 2008 Short-Sale Ban Prevent a Market Crash?

This paper empirically examines the efficacy of the 2008 short-sale ban. We find that the firms covered by the ban experience positive abnormal returns at the ban initiation. When the ban expires, small banks, medium/large banks, and brokerage firms continue to experience positive abnormal returns, while other firms experience negative abnormal returns. The volatilities at the individual stock level and market level are higher in the ban period and remain high in the post-ban period. The frequency of extreme negative returns is smaller and the frequency of extreme positive returns is larger in the ban period relative to the pre-ban period. The extreme negative returns continue to decline and the extreme positive returns remain high in the post-ban period. Our overall evidence indicates that the ban has been successful at what it was intended to achieve, though we cannot rule out the possibility that liquidity and efficiency have deteriorated as a result of the ban.
Outcome of microdissection testicular sperm extraction in azoospermic patients with Klinefelter syndrome and other sex-chromosomal anomalies

It has been indicated that approximately 20% of azoospermic patients have chromosomal anomalies, 90% of which are sex-chromosome abnormalities. Even azoospermic patients with sex-chromosomal anomalies might be able to father children using an advanced assisted reproductive technique such as microdissection testicular sperm extraction (micro-TESE) with intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). To evaluate the effect of micro-TESE in azoospermic patients with various sex-chromosomal anomalies, we reviewed their clinical results. A chromosomal survey using the G-banding technique was performed on males whose semen analysis demonstrated azoospermia at the Division of Male Infertilities at our institution between January 2004 and December 2009. Forty-two of these subjects demonstrated sex-chromosomal anomalies. The mean patient age was 34.4 ± 4.3 years. We classified them into two groups: Klinefelter syndrome (47,XXY) and other sex-chromosome abnormalities. Thirty-five patients showed Klinefelter syndrome and seven patients showed other sex-chromosome abnormalities. Serum follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH), and testosterone (T) levels were 36.3 ± 14.0 IU/L, 15.8 ± 6.7 IU/L, and 3.2 ± 2.0 ng/ml in Klinefelter syndrome, and 20.8 ± 10.4 IU/L, 8.2 ± 5.2 IU/L and 4.1 ± 1.5 ng/ml in other sex-chromosome abnormalities, respectively. The mean testicular volume was 4.0 ± 2.1 ml in Klinefelter syndrome and 9.9 ± 4.6 ml in other sex-chromosome abnormalities. Serum FSH and LH in Klinefelter syndrome were significantly higher than those in other sex-chromosome abnormalities, and the mean testicular volume in Klinefelter syndrome was significantly smaller than that in other sex-chromosome abnormalities. The sperm retrieval rate (SRR) for micro-TESE showed no significant difference between the two groups (42.4% vs. 42.9%). In this study, the outcome of micro-TESE appeared not to differ between Klinefelter syndrome and other sex-chromosome abnormalities.
The matrix cell and cytogenesis in the developing central nervous system

According to the classical interpretation of the histogenesis of the central nervous system (Ziehen, ’06), the wall of the neural tube is composed of three kinds of cells; His’s germinal cells located directly beneath the internal limiting membrane and the spongioblasts and neuroblasts located peripheral to the germinal cell layer. Only the germinal cells, it is believed, are mitotically active to produce spongioblasts and neuroblasts, which metamorphose into neuroglia and nerve cells respectively without further mitosis. This classical concept of the histogenesis has been challenged and greatly altered by a number of investigators through histologic observations (F. C. Sauer, ’35; Fujita, ’58, ’60), by results of experiments with colchicine (Watterson et al., ’56; Fujita et al., ’61a) and trypaflavin (Fujita et al., ’61a), and by data obtained from cytophotometric (M. E. Sauer and Chittenden, ’59) and autoradiographic studies (M. E. Sauer and Walker, ’59; Sidman et al., ’59; Fujita, ’62a). According to the current interpretation (fig. l ) , the resting cells in the primitive ependymal layer (so-called spongioblasts) migrate toward the internal limiting membrane as they begin to divide. Since, in general, the mitotic cells lose contact with the neighboring cells and retain their attachment only at the terminal bars (Fujita, Omatsu et al., ’60), the nuclei are forced to shift toward the internal limiting membrane as the cytoplasm tends to form a sphere. The cells divide directly beneath the internal limiting membrane with the direction of mitosis parallel to the ventricular surface. When mitosis is complete, the daughter cells extend their cytoplasm progressively into the deeper layer and the nuclei shift back toward the periphery. Recently, the turn-over rate of these cells and the various kinetic constants of their “elevator”’ movement have been calculated by the author (’62a). This “elevator” theory led us to conclude that what has been called His’s germinal cell and spongioblast is in fact a single undifferentiated cell population. The author, emphasing the sui generis-nature of this cell population, pointed out those of its characteristics that are definitely different from those of the ependymal cell (Fujita, ’58, ’62c; Fujita, Suwa et al., ’60), and designated this cell type the matrix cell, and the primitive ependymal layer as the matrix layer (Fujita, ’62a, ’62c; Miyake et al., ’61). Two questions now arise: (1 ) are the matrix cells functionally homogeneous and ( 2 ) , is the matrix layer composed solely of these homogeneous matrix cells, or are there other kinds of cells, such as apolar and bipolar neuroblasts (His, 1889; Cajal, 1890; Held, ’09), spongioblasts or ependymoblasts (Tokoro, ’41 ) intermingled among them? The experiments described here were designed to answer these questions, and the results indicate that the matrix cells constitute a single and homogeneous cell population and that the matrix layer is exclusively composed of these matrix cells. No other cells appear to be permitted to remain in this matrix layer.
Evaluating the role of financial flexibility in farmers' investment decisions using latent class analysis

The global structural change in the agricultural sector entails adaptation processes, which often involve leveraged investments resulting in decreasing equity ratios of farms. Lower equity ratios can be followed by a reduction in the financial flexibility of farms. If additional investments with debt capital are made, the financial flexibility may be further restricted. The question that arises is if farm managers already consider the financial flexibility when making investment decisions. In the present study, farmers are faced with hypothetical investment alternatives in a discrete choice experiment. The investment alternatives differ in their profitability, the risk involved and in their impact on the farm's financial flexibility. The estimation of a latent class model, with four classes, reveals that in all classes the amount of debt capital necessary for the investment is relevant for the farmers' decision. In three of the four classes, the farmers' utility of an investment alternative decreases cetris paribus if the amount of debt capital increases.
Capturing Video Frame Rate Variations through Entropic Differencing

High frame rate videos are increasingly getting popular in recent years majorly driven by strong requirements by the entertainment and streaming industries to provide high quality of experiences to consumers. To achieve the best trade-off between the bandwidth requirements and video quality in terms of frame rate adaptation, it is imperative to understand the effects of frame rate on video quality. In this direction, we make two contributions: firstly we design a High Frame Rate (HFR) video database consisting of 480 videos and around 19,000 human quality ratings. We then devise a novel statistical entropic differencing method based on Generalized Gaussian Distribution model in spatial and temporal band-pass domain, which measures the difference in quality between the reference and distorted videos. The proposed design is highly generalizable and can be employed when the reference and distorted sequences have different frame rates, without any need of temporal upsampling. We show through extensive experiments that our model correlates very well with subjective scores in the HFR database and achieves state of the art performance when compared with existing methodologies.
Overall Breast Density in MR Mammography: Diagnostic and Therapeutic Implications in Breast Cancer

The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of MR mammography (MRM) in evaluating breast cancer extent in women with fatty or dense breasts, and its contribution to the therapeutic approach. The authors reviewed 97 carcinomas detected in 93 women (both symptomatic and from screening) that were classified in two groups according to breast density pattern. Mammography, ultrasound (US), and MRM were performed to evaluate size, extension of the in situ component, presence of multifocal/multicentric disease, and contralateral involvement. Results obtained on mammography plus US were balanced against MRM, considering pathologic analysis as the gold standard. For fatty breasts (n = 47), exact measurement was found on mammography plus US and on MRM alone in 70%, underestimation on mammography plus US 23.5% and on MRM 11% (P = 0.005). For dense breasts (n = 50), exact measurement was found on mammography plus US in 40% and on MRM alone 68%, underestimation on mammography plus US 52% and on MRM 10% (P = 0.005). Overall, good correlation (R > 0.71) was found between pathologic and clinical size with all imaging methods; nevertheless, when evaluating multifocal/multicentric disease, a poor correlation was observed between histologic assessment and mammography plus US (R = 0.52), but it was excellent with regard to MRM (R = 0.99). In fatty breasts, the combination of mammography and US allows for a precise assessment of tumoral extension. However, these results show that in dense breasts, MRM is superior to mammography plus US, suggesting that its systematic use in this group of patients is justifiable.
Earnings Restatements and Characteristics of Corporate Executives: Evidence from Japan

In Japan, financial statements are disclosed under the timely disclosure regulations of securities exchanges before the completion of an external audit and disclosed again after the completion of an external audit under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. In each case, any errors contained in financial statements have to be corrected. This study investigated how the characteristics of corporate executives might affect the occurrence probability of earnings restatements. I found that the appointment of a CFO who is a certified public accountant or the presence of a former accounting chief of the company concerned (or another company) among the auditors reduce the occurrence probability of earnings restatements occurring before (or after) the completion of an audit as a result of unintentional errors. In contrast, if the auditors include a certified tax accountant with experience in tax collection, the probability of earnings restatements increases regardless of whether an audit has been completed. This suggests that strong tax saving incentives on the side of companies affect financial reporting given that book-tax conformity is high in Japan.
How do SGD hyperparameters in natural training affect adversarial robustness?

Learning rate, batch size and momentum are three important hyperparameters in the SGD algorithm. It is known from the work of Jastrzebski et al. arXiv:1711.04623 that large batch size training of neural networks yields models which do not generalize well. Yao et al. arXiv:1802.08241 observe that large batch training yields models that have poor adversarial robustness. In the same paper, the authors train models with different batch sizes and compute the eigenvalues of the Hessian of loss function. They observe that as the batch size increases, the dominant eigenvalues of the Hessian become larger. They also show that both adversarial training and small-batch training leads to a drop in the dominant eigenvalues of the Hessian or lowering its spectrum. They combine adversarial training and second order information to come up with a new large-batch training algorithm and obtain robust models with good generalization. In this paper, we empirically observe the effect of the SGD hyperparameters on the accuracy and adversarial robustness of networks trained with unperturbed samples. Jastrzebski et al. considered training models with a fixed learning rate to batch size ratio. They observed that higher the ratio, better is the generalization. We observe that networks trained with constant learning rate to batch size ratio, as proposed in Jastrzebski et al., yield models which generalize well and also have almost constant adversarial robustness, independent of the batch size. We observe that momentum is more effective with varying batch sizes and a fixed learning rate than with constant learning rate to batch size ratio based SGD training.
Traditional products – vectors of sustainable development on the regional and national markets

Traditional products represent an important component of the Romanian culture, of the Romanian identity, of the national heritage. In order to succeed imposing over fakes on the market, this product`s regime must be very well defined and regulated by the acting legislation. While also sanctioning those who produce the so called traditional products, for which they ask a price that is usually greater, offering – not in few cases, products which can affect the consumers` health through their contents of additives or other substances that have no connection to the traditional preparation methods.
Mechanical insertion properties of calcium-phosphate implant coatings.

OBJECTIVES To investigate the influence of protein incorporation on the resistance of biomimetic calcium-phosphate coatings to the shear forces that are generated during implant insertion. MATERIALS AND METHODS Thirty-eight standard (5 × 13 mm) Osseotite® implants were coated biomimetically with a layer of calcium phosphate, which either lacked or bore a co-precipitated (incorporated) depot of the model protein bovine serum albumin (BSA). The coated implants were inserted into either artificial bone (n=18) or the explanted mandibles of adult pigs (n=12). The former set-up was established for the measurement of torque and of coating losses during the insertion process. The latter set-up was established for the histological and histomorphometric analysis of the fate of the coatings after implantation. RESULTS BSA-bearing coatings had higher mean torque values than did those that bore no protein depot. During the insertion process, less material was lost from the former than from the latter type of coating. The histological and histomorphometric analysis revealed fragments of material to be sheared off from both types of coating at vulnerable points, namely, at the tips of the threads. The sheared-off fragments were retained within the peri-implant space. CONCLUSION The incorporation of a protein into a biomimetically prepared calcium-phosphate coating increases its resistance to the shear forces that are generated during implant insertion. In a clinical setting, the incorporated protein would be an osteogenic agent, whose osteoinductive potential would not be compromised by the shearing off of coating material, and the osteoconductivity of an exposed implant surface would not be less than that of a coated one.
The Politics of Medicine and the Global Governance of Pandemic Influenza

While still significant, the 2009 H1N1 (A) influenza pandemic was generally viewed as comparatively mild in contrast to past influenza pandemics. Even so, the conventional response of many governments to protect their populations against the threat from the H1N1 virus was to ensure adequate vaccine production and/or access to supplies of vaccines and antiviral medications. In this article, I examine the influence of biomedical knowledge (and the professionals that wield it) in determining the acceptable and rational limits of influenza public policy from 1918 to today. Particular attention is given to the role that medical practitioners have played in shaping post-World War II influenza policy and governance structures, together with the development, deployment, and political effect of more recent biomedical techniques—such as evidence-based medicine—in reinforcing the importance attached to influenza vaccines and antivirals. The article concludes by discussing how the intense focus on pharmaceutical-based solutions reflects a particular view of biomedicine that has had serious political implications in distorting global health governance arrangements, and I argue that only by unpacking these structures and revealing the political authority in play can alternative policy responses more appropriate to a wider proportion of humanity be considered.
Social functioning in schizophrenia: what is the influence of gender?

Background and Objectives :T o examine the influence of gender on social functioning in patients with schizophrenia Methods: A sample of 318 schizophrenic (216 men and 102 women) (DSM-IV crite- ria) outpatients from four Spanish centres were administered the following instruments: Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS), Disability Assessment Scale (DAS-sv), and Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) Scale. A regression model was created with DAS and GAF as dependent variables, and gender, and other predictor variables as inde- pendent variables. Separate regression models were then generated for females and males. Results: Women had a better social functioning than men, and after adjusting for others predictor variables gender was a significant predictor specially for occupational function- ing. In gender specific analyses, we found that the predictive variables for social function- ing have more similarities than differences between men and women. Conclusions: In our sample, women showed a better social functioning than men spe- cially in occupational functioning.
European consumer preference for African dried fruits

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess European consumer preference and willingness to pay (WTP) for tropical dried fruits from Africa. The paper specifically investigates sensory and credence characteristics driving consumer preferences. Design/methodology/approach – Data on sensory descriptive analysis and hedonic evaluation for seven samples representing three fruit types: mango, pineapple and banana, were collected together with data on Country of Origin (COO) preferences and WTP for conventional, organic and fair-trade labelled dried fruits, among Norwegian consumers (n=96). Findings – The results show that consumer preferences for a dried fruit are affected significantly by its typical aroma intensity and consumers are willing to pay a premium for both organic and fair-trade products. Two consumer groups expressing distinct COO preferences for tropical dried fruits and a third group with no country preferences are revealed. Originality/value – This study provides useful insights for dried .