Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevention and monitoring of the side effects of chronic corticosteroid therapy

Summary Glucocorticoids are used in the treatment of autoimmune, hematological, allergic and other inflammatory diseases. Over the years many synthetic compounds were created in order to exert the strongest anti-inflammatory effect with the least side effects. While short-term treatment with glucocorticoids benefits usually outweigh the adverse events, with time, however, complications of therapy may become a burden for the patient as serious as the underlying disease. Typically the higher the dose and time of treatment, the more numerous and more serious side effects are. In most cases we are not able to give up treatment with corticosteroids and for that reason it is not possible to avoid the side effects. However, with proper prevention methods we can minimize them. In the paper we present the literature review concerning monitoring the treatment and prevention of the most common side effects of glucocorticoids. We also propose the scheme of the management with patient during chronic glucocorticoid treatment.
Linear stability analysis of Richter rolls

The planform of sublithospheric convection is studied by a 3‐D linear stability analysis of longitudinal rolls in the presence of vertical shear. Rayleigh numbers up to 106 are considered. The transition Rayleigh number over which longitudinal rolls are unstable is derived as a function of surface velocity. Effects of nonlinear vertical shear are shown to be insignificant unless nonlinearity becomes extreme. Our results are in good agreement with previous studies, except at high Rayleigh numbers where the meaning of roll stability becomes ambiguous owning to inherently time‐dependent convection. When applied to small‐scale convection in the upper mantle, our results suggest that the roll stability is very sensitive to plate velocity if the upper mantle viscosity is relatively high (∼1020 Pa s); Richter rolls may be expected only beneath fast‐moving plates such as the Pacific plate.
Fluid intelligence and executive functioning more alike than different?

Objective Fluid intelligence (Gf) has been related to executive functioning (EF) in previous studies, and it is also known to be correlated with crystallized intelligence (Gc). The present study includes representative measures of Gf, Gc, and EF frequently used in clinical practice to examine this Gf–EF relation. It is hypothesised that the Gf–EF relation is higher than the Gc–EF relation, and that working memory in particular (as a measure of EF) shows a high contribution to this relation. Method Confirmatory factor analysis was performed on a mixed neuropsychiatric and non-clinical sample consisting of 188 participants, using the Kaufman Adolescent and Adult Intelligence Test, and three executive tasks of the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery, covering working memory, planning skills, and set shifting. Results The model fitted the data well [χ2(24)=35.25, p=0.07, RMSEA=0.050]. A very high correlation between Gf and EF was found (0.91), with working memory being the most profound indicator. A moderate to high correlation between Gc and EF was present. Current results are consistent with findings of a strong relation between Gf and working memory. Conclusion Gf and EF are highly correlated. Gf dysfunction in neuropsychiatric patients warrants further EF examination and vice versa. It is discussed that results confirm the need to distinguish between specific versus general fluid/executive functioning, the latter being more involved when task complexity and novelty increase. This distinction can provide a more refined differential diagnosis and improve neuropsychiatric treatment indication.
Strategic entrepreneurship in New Zealand's state-owned enterprises: Underlying elements and financial implications

The concept of strategic entrepreneurship has received increased attention over the past ten yeras. Viewed as the intersection of entrepreneurship and strategy this field of research is populated by conceptual studies which focus mainly on the nature and perceived benefits of strategic entrepreneurship. Similarly the study of entrepreneurship in a public sector context has gained increasing support in recent years but also remains underexplored. To address these gaps this thesis considers : what are the underlying elements and financial implications of strategic entrepreneurship in New Zealand's state-owned enterprises, New Zealand's SOE sector comprising 17 government-owned,commercially focused organisations, is considered to be a prime subject for this research. Well known for their implementation of new public management, many New Zealand SOEs have also been publicly recognised as both innovative and entrepreneurial. The research question is addressed by first developing a preliminary framework of strategic entrepreneurship from literature on entrepreneurhsip and strategy. The framework is then examined in the context of case studies on activity.
The Importance of HRM in Creating Employee Innovativeness - the Mediating Role of Person-Organisation/Job Fit and Job Characteristics

The purpose of the study presented in this article is to describe and explain the relationship between HRM practices and innovative behaviours initiated and performed by employees. In the model I propose, I use a "person-organisation fit" as a mediator of the relationship between HRM and creative activity in the workplace, and the influence the former has on the latter. The analysis also accounts for a variable which corresponds to person-organisation fit, and is defined as "job characteristics". The research confirmed that a significant statistical relationship exists between innovative work behaviours and all of the variables examined: HRM practices, person-organisation fit and job characteristics/job demands. On the basis of the analysis with the use of structural equation model, it may be stated that the following factors influence innovative behaviours: 1) HRM practices (which have an indirect influence through person-organisation fit) and 2) person-organisation fit and job characteristics/job demands (which have a direct influence). The model explains the direct influence of HRM on person-organisation fit and job characteristics. The research shows that the "person-organisation fit" construct, as a variable explaining individual innovative effectiveness in the workplace, provides a useful perspective which may facilitate not only understanding of factors which determine the occurrence of organisational innovative activity, but also stimulate creative behaviours via HRM activities. This is because HRM practices play the key role both in adjusting competences to job characteristics and demands, and in creating attitudes which support employee innovative commitment. The combination of variables presented in the research model helps to explain the significance of chosen determinants of behaviours which are essential from the perspective of company effectiveness and competitiveness on the market. The research focuses on both individual aspects of innovative behaviors (resources which are needed to perform a creative task) and their organisational aspects (person-job/organisation fit). The scope of the analysis also covers the strategic role HR departments play.
A decline in mortality from prostate cancer in the UK Atomic Energy Authority workforce

Early epidemiological studies of the UKAEA workforce, which followed up the mortality of those who worked to the end of 1979, found a significant excess of prostate cancer deaths in some subsets of the cohort, particularly workers internally monitored for tritium contamination and those employed at the Winfrith laboratories. The excess seemed to be associated with work in heavy-water reactors. We have followed up the mortality in the UKAEA workforce to the end of 1997 and compared the mortality from prostate cancer in the years 1980–97 with the years to 1979. We found a significantly lower mortality from prostate cancer in the later years in many of the subsets of the cohort that were previously identified as high risk. There was no evidence of a continuing raised risk of prostate cancer in any subset. We considered two possible reasons why the observed risk might have declined. There is no evidence that any risk associated with heavy-water reactors would have abated in the later years or that the cohort would be less susceptible to prostate cancer. Our conclusion is that the original observation might have been a chance finding among many significance tests.
Toxicity and Toxin Properties Study of Puffer Fish Collected from Sabah Waters Monaliza

Fatal food poisonings associated with the consumption of puffer fish have occurred for decades in Malaysia, but the causative species or toxins have never been documented. Herein, we investigated the toxicity on Lagocephalus lunaris, Lagocephalus spadiceus and Lagocephalus sceleratus collected from the coastal waters of Sabah. Toxicity assessment by mouse bioassay revealed that L. spadiceus was non-toxic. The toxicity scores of toxin extracted from muscle, liver and skin of L. spadiceus were all less than 2 MU/g and the toxin is considered too mild to be detected since the mice do not die in 30 minutes after injection. However, the mice showed the symptoms of having neurotoxin infection. The toxicity level of two other species remains unknown and the research is in progress. Further study about the toxicity of puffer fish is carried out using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) and Liquid Chromatography/ Mass Spectrometry (LC/MS) in order to verify the toxicity level in different part of puffer fish tissues.
A quantitative description of the sodium current in the rat sympathetic neurone.

The somata of rat sympathetic neurones were voltage‐clamped in vitro at 27 degrees C using separate intracellular voltage and current micro‐electrodes. Na currents were isolated from other current contributions by using: Cd to block the Ca current (ICa) and the related Ca‐dependent K current (IK(Ca)), and external tetraethylammonium to suppress the delayed rectifier current (IK(V) ). The holding potential was maintained at ‐50 mV to inactivate the fast transient K current (IA) when the IA contamination was unacceptable. Step depolarizations beyond ‐30 mV activated a fast, transient inward current carried by Na ions; it was suppressed by tetrodotoxin and was absent in Na‐free solution. Once activated, INa declined exponentially to zero with a voltage‐dependent time constant. The underlying conductance, gNa, showed a sigmoidal activation between ‐30 and +10 mV, with half‐activation at ‐21.1 mV and a maximal value (mean gNa) of 4.44 microS per neurone. The steady‐state inactivation level, h infinity, varied with membrane potential, ranging from complete inactivation at ‐30 mV to minimal inactivation at about ‐90 mV with a midpoint at ‐56.2 mV. Double‐pulse experiments showed that development and removal of inactivation followed a single‐exponential time course; tau h was markedly voltage‐dependent and ranged from 46 ms at ‐50 mV to 2.5 ms at ‐100 mV. Besides the fast inactivation, the Na conductance showed a slow component of inactivation. The steady‐state value, s infinity, was maximal at ‐80 mV and minimal at ‐40 mV. The removal of slow inactivation is a two‐time‐constant process, the first with a time constant in the order of hundreds of milliseconds and the second with a time constant of seconds. Slow inactivation onset appeared to be a faster process than its removal. When slow inactivation was fully removed the peak INa increased by a factor of 1.8. INa was well described by assuming it to be proportional to m3h. The temperature dependence of peak INa, tau m and tau h was studied in the temperature range 17‐27 degrees C and found similar to that reported for other preparations. The Q10 of these parameters allowed the reconstruction of the INa kinetic properties at 37 degrees C.
Incidence of clinical mastitis in dairy herds grouped in three categories by bulk milk somatic cell counts.

Incidence of clinical mastitis was studied in 274 herds grouped in three categories by bulk milk somatic cell count (SCC). Mean incidence rate of clinical mastitis was 0.278, 0.257, and 0.252 cases per 365 cow-days at risk in herds with low (< or = 150,000), medium (150,000 to 250,000), and high (250,000 to 400,000 cells/ml) bulk milk SCC, respectively. The incidence rate of clinical mastitis was not different among the three categories. Variance in the incidence of clinical mastitis among herds increased as bulk milk SCC decreased. Clinical mastitis caused by Gram-negative pathogens, such as Escherichia coli, Klebsiella spp. , or Pseudomonas spp. , occurred more often in herds with a low bulk milk SCC. Clinical mastitis caused by Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus dysgalactiae, and Streptococcus agalactiae occurred more often in herds with a high bulk milk SCC. Systemic signs of illness caused by clinical mastitis occurred more often in herds with a low bulk milk SCC. Both overall culling rate and culling rate for clinical mastitis were not different among groups catergorized by bulk milk SCC. In herds with a high bulk milk SCC, however, more cows that produced milk with a high SCC were culled. In herds with a low bulk milk SCC, more cows were culled for teat lesions, milkability, udder shape, fertility, and character than were cows in herds with a high bulk milk SCC. In herds with a low bulk milk SCC, cows were also culled more for export and production reasons.
Exclusive Dealing, Common Agency, and Multiprincipals Incentive Theory

What are the costs and benefits of exclusive dealing and why do manufacturers choose to organize their retailing markets in this way instead of taking a common retailer? This article traces back the benefits of this organizational form of distribution to the provision of incentives in a setting of competing manufacturer-retailer hierarchies under adverse selection. It first develops a theoretical model that studies competition between hierarchies under the assumption of secret wholesale contracts. Second, it analyzes a game of choice of retailing channels between rival manufacturers. Depending on the extent of the adverse selection problem and on the complementarity or substitutability of their brands, manufacturers prefer to use either a common or an exclusive retailer.
THERMOGRAPHIC STUDIES IN VASCULAR HEADACHE

“AGA Thermovision” has been used to record the temperature of the face and scalp in normal subjects and patients susceptible to vascular headache. Even when free of headache, the latter group showed asymmetry of heat loss from the forehead more often than normal controls. During migraine headache, the skin temperature was lower on the affected side by about 1°C in 8 out of 12 of the patients with hemicrania. The reduction of skin temperature on the side of migraine headache, in spite of dilatation of the extracranial arteries, Indicates that blood Is shunted away from the skin during the attack. Asymmetry of heat loss persisted for some time after the relief of migraine headache by intravenous serotonin or oral ergotamine tartrate therapy, suggesting that these agents achieve their effect through constriction of the extracranial arteries rather than dilatation of skin capillaries.
Suicide seasonality and antidepressants: a register‐based study in Sweden

Objective: Seasonality of completed suicides with a peak in spring and early summer is a well‐documented finding. The circannual serotonergic functioning is hypothesized to be central in this phenomenon. Antidepressant medications exert their pharmacological action mainly by regulating serotonin. Our aim is to study the amplitude of the seasonal effect among suicide victims positive for different classes of antidepressants or without any antidepressants at the time of death.
Building Absorptive Capacity to Organise Inbound Open Innovation in Low Tech Industries

The discussion on open innovation suggests that the ability to absorb external knowledge has become a major driver for competition. In the case of inbound open innovation, companies screen their environment to search for the appropriate technology and knowledge and do not exclusively rely on in-house RD it defines the concept of absorptive capacity as a precondition to open innovation; and it demonstrates how firms lacking absorptive capacity collectively cope with the distributedness of knowledge and innovation.
Discovery and genetic assessment of wild bottle Gourd [Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) Standley; Cucurbitaceae] from Zimbabwe

Bottle gourd /Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) Standley] is an edible, medicinal, and otherwise utilitarian domesticated cucurbit with an ancient pantropical distribution. This African native reached Asia and the Americas 9000 years ago, probably as a wild species whose fruits had floated across the seas. Independent domestications from wild populations are believed to have occurred in both the Old and New Worlds. However, few wild populations of L. siceraria have been found during recorded history and none has been verified or studied in detail. In 1992, Mary Wilkins-Ellert discovered an unusual free-living plant of Lagenaria in a remote region of southeastern Zimbabwe. Her morphological observations during several plantings of the collected seed, as well as results from two genetic analyses (random amplified polymorphic DNA and chloroplast sequencing), indicate that the Zimbabwe collection is part of a genetically distinct and wild lineage ofL. siceraria.
Analyst Price Target Expected Returns and Option Implied Risk

Motivated by the nature of asset pricing models, we investigate the cross-sectional relation between the market's ex-ante view of a stock's risk and the stock's ex-ante expected return. We demonstrate that an ex-ante measure of expected returns based on analyst price targets is highly related to the market's required rate of return. Using this measure, we show that ex-ante measures of volatility, skewness, and kurtosis derived from option prices are positively related to ex-ante expected returns. We then decompose the risk measures into systematic and unsystematic components and find that while expected returns are related to both systematic and unsystematic variance risk, only the unsystematic components of skewness and kurtosis are important for explaining the cross-section of expected stock returns. The results are consistent using two different approaches to measuring ex-ante risk and robust to controls for other variables related to stock returns and analyst bias.
Cost-Utility Analysis of Methadone Maintenance Treatment: A Methodological Approach

Economic considerations influence the substance user treatment system. These considerations influence who gets treatment and for how long, as well as determining what services they receive and in what setting. Current medical literature argues that maintenance treatment reduces risk-taking behavior, such as injection drug use and needle sharing. Treatment also reduces the mortality associated with abuse of opiates by injection and can cause decreases in costs incurred by the criminal justice system and social services agencies. This suggests the need for complex economic evaluations of a maintenance treatment to find out the optimum treatment program. This paper describes methods of economic evaluation in healthcare and reviews the methodology of cost–utility analysis in economic evaluations of methadone maintenance treatment.
Randomized Trial of Single Agent Paclitaxel Given Weekly Versus Every Three Weeks and with Peroral Versus Intravenous Steroid Premedication to Patients with Ovarian Cancer Previously Treated with Platinum

The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of paclitaxel given at the same dose intensity and administered weekly (arm A) or every 3 weeks (arm B), and to assess the safety of intravenous steroids versus standard peroral premedication. Two hundred and eight patients with advanced ovarian cancer previously treated with no more than one platinum-containing regimen were randomized to receive either a weekly infusion of paclitaxel or an infusion every 3 weeks. The median delivered dose intensity was 77.6 mg/m 2 /week in the weekly arm, and 72.7 mg/m 2 /week in the every 3 weeks arm. WHO grade 3-4 hematological and non-hematological toxicity occurred more frequently in arm B. No difference in number of severe events of hypersensitivity, response rate, time to progression or survival between arms was observed. Weekly paclitaxel at a dose of 67 mg/m 2 /week was found to have a better safety profile and seemed to be as effective as the equivalently dosed schedule every 3 weeks. Intravenous steroids are a safe alternative to oral steroids.
The Absa residential property market database for South Africa - key data trends and implications

For most working people in South Africa (and probably in most developed countries worldwide), their house and retirement provision account for the bulk of the wealth they have accumulated throughout their working lives. The considerable extent of homeownership among South Africa’s working population means that changes in residential property prices may be of particular interest and concern because of the wealth effects that could emanate from fluctuations in property values.
A review of dielectric polymer composites with high thermal conductivity

The continuing miniaturization of electronic devices and the increasing power output of electrical equipment have created new challenges in packaging and insulating materials. The key goals are to develop materials with high thermal conductivity, low coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), low dielectric con stant, high electrical resistivity, high breakdown strength, and most importantly, low cost. Polymeric materials have attracted increasing interest because of their excellent processability and low cost; however, most polymers are thermally insulating and have a thermal conductivity between 0.1 and 0.5 W-m-ι-K"1. One approach to increase the thermal conductivity of a polymer is to introduce high-thermal-conductivity fillers, such as aluminum oxide, aluminum nitride, boron nitride, silicon nitride, beryllium oxide, or diamond. In this review paper, we explore how dielectric polymer composites with high thermal conductivity have been developed.
In situ Measurements and Model Estimates of NO3 and NH4 Uptake by Different Phytoplankton Size Fractions in the Southern Benguela Upwelling System

Bulk measurements can be made of phytoplankton standing stocks on a quasi-synoptic scale but it is more difficult to measure rates of production and nutrient uptake. We present a method to estimate nitrogen uptake rates in productive coastal environments. We use observed phytoplankton cell size distributions and ambient nitrogen concentrations to calculate uptake rates of nitrate, ammonium and total nitrogen by different size fractions of diverse phytoplankton communities in a coastal upwelling system. The data are disaggregated into size categories, uptake rates are calculated and these uptake rates are reaggregated to obtain bulk estimates. The calculations are applied to 72 natural assemblages for which nitrogen uptake rates and particle size distributions were measured \textit{in situ}. The calculated values of total N uptake integrated across all size classes are similar to those of \textit{in situ} bulk measurements (N slope=0.90), (NH$_{4}$ slope=0.96) indicating dependence of NH$_{4}$ and total N uptake on ambient N concentrations and cell size distributions of the phytoplankton assemblages. NO$_{3}$ uptake was less well explained by cell size and ambient concentrations, but regressions between measured and estimated rates were still significant. The results suggest that net nitrogen dynamics can be quantified at an assemblage scale using size dependencies of Michaelis-Menten uptake parameters. These methods can be applied to particle size distributions that have been routinely measured in eutrophic systems to estimate and subsequently analyse variability in nitrogen uptake.