Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Critical Guide to Case Series Reports

Objective. Provide guidance to investigators and authors regarding appropriate conduct and reporting of case-series studies. Summary of Background Data. Evidence-based practice has provided a substantial contribution to advancing clinical science. Many study designs have been critically examined, and the quality of the research literature has improved. A common study design in musculoskeletal medicine is the case series: a description of the course of patients over time. Case series can provide valuable information as to: case definition, trend analyses regarding outcomes, and clues as to causation. Case series cannot be used to draw inferences regarding treatment effect. Methods. Examination of previous work on identification of characteristics of high quality study designs such as cohort studies; extending this work to case series. Results. We identified draft characteristics that good case series studies should address: clearly defined study question; well- described study population; well-described intervention; use of validated outcome measures; appropriate statistical analyses; well-described results; discussion/conclusions supported by the data presented; funding sources acknowledged. Conclusions. We propose these measures to authors and journal editors as one mechanism to improve the quality of the case series study.
Moral hazard, risk aversion and compliance monitoring in agri-environmental policy

Agri-environmental policy is modelled as a social welfare maximisation problem that recognises the potential trade-off between increased environmental benefit and increased cost of monitoring compliance. Moral hazard arises because monitoring does not detect all those who fail to comply with contractual obligations. It is shown that if monitoring costs are negligible of fixed, or farmers are highly risk averse, the moral hazard problem can be eliminated. However, if monitoring costs depend on monitoring effort and the degree of risk aversion is low, only a second-best solution can be obtained. Numerical simulations suggest that optimal monitoring effort declines with increasing farmer risk aversion. Copyright 2001, Oxford University Press.
Synthesis of Corneal Keratan Sulfate Proteoglycans by Bovine Keratocytes in Vitro*

Keratan sulfate proteoglycans (KSPGs) are the major proteoglycans of the cornea and are secreted by keratocytes in the corneal stroma. Previous studies have been able to show only transient secretion of KSPG in cell culture. In this study, cultures of bovine keratocytes were found to secrete the three previously characterized KSPG proteins into culture medium. Reactivity with monoclonal antibody I22 demonstrated substitution of these proteins with keratan sulfate chains. KSPG constituted 15% of the proteoglycan metabolically labeled with [35S]sulfate in keratocyte culture medium. This labeled KSPG contained keratan sulfate chains of 4700 Da compared to 21,000 Da for bovine corneal keratan sulfate. Labeled keratan sulfate from cultures contained nonsulfated, monosulfated, and disulfated disaccharides that were released by digestion with endo-β-galactosidase or keratanase II. Nonsulfated disaccharides were relatively more abundant in keratan sulfate from culture than in corneal keratan sulfate. These results show that cultured bovine keratocytes maintain the ability to express all three of the known KSPG proteins, modified with keratan sulfate chains and sulfated on both N-acetylglucosamine and galactose moieties. KSPG made in vitro differs from that found in vivo in the length and sulfation of its keratan sulfate chains. The availability of cell cultures secreting corneal keratan sulfate proteoglycans provides an opportunity to examine biosynthesis and control of this important class of molecules.
Do They Understand the Benefits from Education? Evidence on Dutch High School Students' Earnings Expectations

Using an internet collected dataset, we will provide some empirical evidence on the information that Dutch high school students possess before their decision on tertiary education participation. The sample is prone to selective participation and high attrition, but we detect little systematic effects and inconsistent reporting of probability distribution is not more frequent than in controlled settings. We find little support for patterns that one would expect from individuals having private information. Girls expect substantially lower earnings in all schooling scenarios, but implicit rate of returns do not differ from those anticipated by boys. We find no evidence of expected risk compensation.
Germ cell expression of placental alkaline phosphatase in male pseudohermaphroditism

We have reviewed testes removed from 14 individuals with male pseudohermaphroditism (13 with androgen insensitivity and one with 17 α‐hydroxylase deficiency) and have studied staining for placental alkaline phosphatase in germ cells. Placental alkaline phosphatase positivity was identified in fetal and premature neonatal controls but not in cryptorchid males or normal autopsy control material from boys older than 6 months. It was present in autopsy testes younger than 6 months and cases of androgen insensitivity in boys younger than 8 months, suggesting immaturity. It was also expressed in two patients with male pseudohermaphroditism aged 5 years and 14 years, both of whom had intra‐tubular germ cell neoplasia by morphological criteria. Our study confirms the use of placental alkaline phospatase as a marker of germ cell neoplasia in this specific group who are at high risk of malignancy.
New Evidence on the Market for Directors: Board Membership and Pennsylvania Senate Bill 1310

We examine the relation between a board's decision to reject antitakeover provisions of Pennsylvania Senate Bill 1310 and subsequent labor market opportunities of those same board members. Compared to directors retaining all provisions, directors rejecting all protective provisions of SB1310 are three times as likely to gain additional external directorships and are 30 percent more likely to retain their internal slot on the board of that same Pennsylvania company. For external board seats, the results are driven by nonexecutive directors who are not members of the management team; for internal board seats, the results are driven by executive directors. Copyright 2003 by the American Finance Association.
Stock Return Behaviour around Stock Splits: Indian Evidences

Present study examines the stock return behaviour vis-à-vis stock splits in Indian context during the period from December 1999 to December 2007. It also makes an effort to disentangle the liquidity, trading range and neglected firm hypothesis. Consistent to earlier evidence, the study also documents the stock split announcement and execution effect in Indian context. The results regarding trading volume and daily turnover led to negation of improvement in liquidity after stock splits in India. The study could not corroborate the trading range hypothesis as possible explanation of stocks splits in India as majority of shares which split were trading at low market prices. While the neglected firm hypothesis could firmly be associated with the stock splits in India.
Phase Transitions and Bistability in Honeybee Foraging Dynamics

Many physical and biological systems display phase transitions, where a slight change in a parameter greatly changes the behavior of the system; and bistability, where for a certain range of this parameter either of two phases can be obtained, depending on initial conditions. We suggest the presence of these phenomena in a model of foraging honeybees. The eventual number of foragers depends in a complex way on the bee concentration and on the scouting rate. The results hold relevance for other multi-agent systems with potential jumps in system behavior or efficiency, depending on agent concentration.
How to create information management capabilities through web 2.0

Over the last two decades investment in information technologies (IT) has been sufficiently high to be considered economically relevant. However, it has not been easy to prove that there are positive effects of these investments on organisational performance. This study questions the validity of directly relating web 2.0 initiatives to firm performance without taking into consideration other complementary assets such as managerial skills in IT, organisational restructuring and a culture of change. If these factors are not present, IT may not in fact produce any benefits whatsoever. The authors approach this problem using the resource-based view and propose the construct information management capability as a measure to gather the integration of the various co-specialised and complementary capabilities, whether technological or human and organisational, necessary in order to obtain competitive advantages in information use. A scale is created to measure this construct, the reliability and validity of which are demonstrated.
Implementing (and radicalizing) art. I-47.4 of the Constitution: is the addition of some (semi-)direct democracy to the nascent consociational European federation just Swiss folklore?*

Abstract This contribution scrutinizes how the Swiss approach towards democratization, which not only combines representative and direct democracy, but also includes federalist provisions and implies consociational practices similar to those in the EU, can reduce its democratic deficit. It proposes as a means of implementing art. I-47.4 of the Constitutional Treaty referendums that would be initiated ‘from below’ by citizens' petitions (with balanced geographical distribution). Popular initiatives on European ‘laws’ and ‘framework laws’ should be introduced. This contribution discusses various procedural variants of such institutions and concludes that, given the similarities between the European and the Swiss political system, direct democracy mechanisms in the EU would primarily produce – as in Switzerland – indirect integrative effects. They would reinforce the negotiated aspect of policy-making instead of acting as majoritarian devices. They might also reinvigorate interest in European matters and strengthen identification with the EU system.
On the role of acquisition premium in acquisition research

Several studies argue that paying high acquisition premia is value destroying for acquirer shareholders. There are studies that have even used the size of premium as a measure of low-quality decision making. This paper departs from the earlier research and shows that acquisition premia may be justified when target firms' resources are difficult for the market to value. An analysis of a sample of 458 acquisitions demonstrates that although higher premia are paid for R&D-related assets, the premia do not cause negative abnormal returns. Abnormal returns are more strongly affected by the overall target price levels independent of premia. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Management of appendiceal masses.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the outcome of patients treated for appendiceal abscess, and managed either conservatively or surgically, and to describe the short and long-term outcome as well as incidence of interval appendicectomy in those treated conservatively. DESIGN Retrospective study. SETTING University hospital, Sweden. PATIENTS Ninety-three patients with the diagnosis of appendiceal abscess, 50 treated conservatively and 43 who were operated on, with a mean age of 46 (14-93) years. Mean (range) follow-up for patients operated on was 65 (11-135) and for those treated conservatively 66 (6-136) months. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Course of acute disease, recorded complications, recurrence of appendicitis and incidence of interval appendicectomy during follow-up. RESULTS The duration of pain before admission was 4 (0.5-82) days for those operated on and 7 (2-60) days for those treated conservatively. A palpable mass was more common in the conservatively managed group. Complications were common among patients who were operated on. No interval appendicectomies were done during the second half of the study period. 4 of the patients treated conservatively (8%) had an underlying tumour diagnosed at follow-up. CONCLUSIONS Operative management of patients with appendiceal masses seems to be associated with a high risk of postoperative complications and the risk of a more extensive surgical procedure. If possible, a conservative approach should be advocated. Because of inaccurate radiological imaging during the acute phase and the risk of an underlying malignancy, routine follow-up is necessary. Routine interval appendicectomy cannot be recommended.
DNA vaccines against HPV-16 E7-expressing tumour cells.

BACKGROUND Genetic immunisation induces the endogenous production of the encoded antigens, which favours their presentation by MHC class I molecules. The E7 protein from "high risk" Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is constitutively expressed in cervical cancer and represents a target for immunotherapy. MATERIALS AND METHODS Several E7-encoding DNA vaccines were constructed including unmodified E7 and E7 fused to ubiquitin or to the Invariant chain in order to increase the presentation of E7-derived peptides by MHC class I or II molecules, respectively. These vaccines were administered i.m. to C57BL/6 mice that were subsequently challenged with E7-positive tumour cell lines expressing different levels of MHC class I molecules. RESULTS The E7-Ii fusion sequence protected a number of animals from tumour challenging. No differences were associated with the MHC class I status of the challenging cell lines. CONCLUSION Engineering the intracellular pathway for antigen presentation is able to produce a valid therapeutic response even against tumours with down-regulated MHC class I.
Wide Load Range ZVS Three-Level DC–DC Converter: Four Primary Switches, Capacitor Clamped, Two Secondary Switches, and Smaller Output Filter Volume

A novel soft-switching PWM three-level (TL) dc-dc converter with two added secondary switches is proposed. The proposed converter has following good features: four primary switches sustain half of the input voltage; the primary circuit is simpler and more compact due to only one flying capacitor with smaller current stress is required to clamp off state voltage of the primary switches; the secondary rectified voltage before the output filter is a TL waveform, which significantly reduces the requirement of the output and input filters; all primary switches can obtain ZVS in wide load range. Furthermore, less conduction loss is added. The added secondary switches can obtain zero-current switching independent of the load current. The proposed converter can be extended to higher voltage level easily due to simpler and more compact primary structure. In addition, the presented converter is also well suitable for high-input dc interfaces with independent controllable multioutput ports. The operation principle, soft switching characteristics, and some important analyzes are presented in this paper. The proposed converter is verified by the experimental results from a 10-kW prototype.
Antibacterial Activity and Anticancer Activity of Rosmarinus officinalis L. Essential Oil Compared to That of Its Main Components

In this study, Rosmarinus officinalis L. essential oil and three of its main components 1,8-cineole (27.23%), α-pinene (19.43%) and β-pinene (6.71%) were evaluated for their in vitro antibacterial activities and toxicology properties. R. officinalis L. essential oil possessed similar antibacterial activities to α-pinene, and a little bit better than β-pinene, while 1,8-cineole possessed the lowest antibacterial activities. R. officinalis L. essential oil exhibited the strongest cytotoxicity towards three human cancer cells. Its inhibition concentration 50% (IC50) values on SK-OV-3, HO-8910 and Bel-7402 were 0.025‰, 0.076‰ and 0.13‰ (v/v), respectively. The cytotoxicity of all the test samples on SK-OV-3 was significantly stronger than on HO-8910 and Bel-7402. In general, R. officinalis L. essential oil showed greater activity than its components in both antibacterial and anticancer test systems, and the activities were mostly related to their concentrations.
Experiential knowledge types and profiles of internationalising small and medium-sized enterprises

Although experiential knowledge is a well-documented construct in the internationalisation literature, research on the multidimensionality of the construct remains limited and we do not know how different knowledge combinations among internationalising SMEs are composed. This article answers the research questions: is experiential knowledge in the internationalisation process a multidimensional construct, and is there a pattern to be found among the experiential knowledge profiles of internationalising SMEs? In the article, the multidimensionality of the concept is established and four experience-based knowledge profiles of internationalising firms are identified. First, four types of experiential knowledge are extracted: internationalisation, institutional, business network and social network knowledge. Second, four experiential knowledge profiles are identified: masters, institutional experts, social networkers and learners. The article concludes that experiential knowledge is a multidimensional construct and that internationalising SMEs develop heterogeneous experiential knowledge profiles.
On the Linkages among Ex-ante and Ex-post Volatility: Evidence from NSE Options Market (India)

This article investigates the cointegration level, and changes in the existence and direction of causality among volatilities. Vector autoregressive (VAR) model enables us to conduct Granger-causality and impulse response analysis, and determine the pattern of causality. The empirical findings uncover that ex-ante volatility best impounds the market-wide information to explain the ex-post volatility. Vector autoregression results make clear that unidirectional causality exists among ex-ante and ex-post volatilities. Impulse response analysis explains that realized volatility declines significantly initially in the first two periods and remains constant for all other periods. Findings, emphasizes that implied volatility is more informative on volatility forecasting, useful for successful volatility traders and pricing of options.
Raising Capital with Private Placements of Debt

In this study the role of private placements of debt in the capital acquisition decision of public utilities is investigated. Whereas public offerings are sales of securities through financial intermediaries to the public‐at‐large, private placements are direct sales of securities by an issuing corporation to a limited number of institutional investors. In contrast to the negative stock price reactions typically found for public security sales, private placements are associated with significant positive abnormal returns in the shares of the issuing public utilities. Also, larger private placements appear to elicit a more favorable market response. Results are consistent with reduced information asymmetries and increased monitoring of the issuing firm resulting from the private placement.
The specification and maintenance of renal cell types by epigenetic factors

The specification of cell lineages and patterning in the embryo occurs sequentially as specific regions are increasingly restricted in their developmental fates. When and how this occurs is still not entirely clear. Nevertheless, the roles of epigenetic regulatory genes in partitioning the genome into active and inactive domains is evident in a variety of organisms and is highly conserved through evolution. The function of Pax2 in the kidney has been inferred by the phenotypic analysis of loss-of-function mutants in mice, fish, and humans. Although Pax2 and the related gene, Pax8, are essential for early intermediate mesoderm specification and are found in the epithelial lineage arising from that mesoderm, how these proteins regulate cell lineage restriction and gene expression patterns has remained obscure. Our recent data, suggests that Pax proteins help establish chromatin domains within cell lineages by providing the locus and tissue specificity for epigenetic imprinting complexes that modify histones. The novel protein PTIP is a key adaptor that links Pax proteins and possibly many other types of DNA binding proteins to a histone H3K4 methyltransferase complex. Given the prevalence of Pax2 expression in kidney development and in kidney disease, we now need to address the effects of epigenetics on renal disease states, on the stability of the terminal epithelial phenotype, and in the aging cell.
Estimating Coaching Efficiency in Professional Team Sports: Evidence from English Association Football

This study provides a review of the literature on sporting production functions with an emphasis on different input-output specifications and alternative estimation procedures. Empirical evidence is reported for English association football on the robustness of estimates of coaching efficiency to changes in estimation methods and the definition of team performance and playing talent inputs. A measure of player quality based on predicted start-of-season transfer values is developed. It is found that the estimation of coaching efficiency is sensitive to the choice of time-invariant efficiency models versus time-varying and inefficiency effects models. It is also found that the results are little affected by different measures of team performance but are highly sensitive to the use of an ex post financial expenditure input measure. Ex ante input measures based on start-of-season player characteristics or predicted transfer values are recommended as more appropriate on both theoretical and empirical grounds.
Environmental protection and financial performance: an empirical analysis in Wales

Purpose – This paper analyses the relationship between environmental protection and mid-term financial performance, focusing on when and why this relationship is positive. In particular, the paper disaggregates environmental protection, differentiating between environmental management practices, environmental proactivity and environmental performance of the organization. Design/methodology/approach – It uses a cross-section survey of 2,122 Welsh companies to gather information on environmental practices and the FAME database to collect data on accounting based financial performance. The paper uses regression analysis on a combined sample of 186 Welsh companies to evaluate the effect on performance of different types of environmental protection. Findings – On the whole, the results show a positive effect of environmental protection on mid-term financial performance. Financial performance has a positive and significant correlation with environmental proactivity and with environmental performance, while it has a no significant relation with environmental management. Originality/value – The paper presents a disaggregated analysis of environmental protection in relationship with financial performance. The paper differentiates between environmental management practices, environmental proactivity and environmental performance of the organization in their relationship with financial performance.
Forensic Accounting: Public Acceptance towards Occurrence of Fraud Detection

In recent years, accounting fraud has occurred widely throughout the globalised business sector. This does not exclude Malaysia as it is emerging as one of the many countries with high expanding rates of business deals. Due to the fact that Malaysian companies are still new and inexperience in managing business and its accounts, this has created undetected loopholes for accounting fraud committers. This has also created bad perceptions by the public regarding the various fraudulent activities that emerge in the country. Therefore this article examines the public acceptance towards occurrence of fraud detection which plays a vital role in business growth. The uniqueness of this paper focuses on the literature review on the public acceptance on fraud detection. This article maps out the importance of fraud detection to strengthen and be competitive in the business.