Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Statins and musculoskeletal conditions, arthropathies, and injuries.

IMPORTANCE Statin use may be associated with increased musculoskeletal adverse events, especially in physically active individuals. OBJECTIVE To determine whether statin use is associated with musculoskeletal conditions, including arthropathy and injury, in a military health care system. DESIGN A retrospective cohort study with propensity score matching. SETTING San Antonio Military Multi-Market. PARTICIPANTS Tricare Prime/Plus beneficiaries evaluated from October 1, 2003, to March 1, 2010. INTERVENTIONS Statin use during fiscal year 2005. On the basis of medication fills, patients were divided into 2 groups: statin users (received a statin for at least 90 days) and nonusers (never received a statin throughout the study period). MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Using patients' baseline characteristics, we generated a propensity score that was used to match statin users and nonusers; odds ratios (ORs) were determined for each outcome measure. Secondary analyses determined adjusted ORs for all patients who met study criteria and a subgroup of patients with no comorbidities identified using the Charlson Comorbidity Index. Sensitivity analysis further determined adjusted ORs for a subgroup of patients with no musculoskeletal diseases at baseline and a subgroup of patients who continued statin therapy for 2 years or more. The occurrence of musculoskeletal conditions was determined using prespecified groups of International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, ClinicalModification codes: Msk1, all musculoskeletal diseases; Msk1a, arthropathies and related diseases; Msk1b, injury-related diseases (dislocation, sprain, strain); and Msk2, drug-associated musculoskeletal pain. RESULTS A total of 46 249 individuals met study criteria (13 626 statin users and 32 623 nonusers). Of these, we propensity score-matched 6967 statin users with 6967 nonusers. Among matched pairs, statin users had a higher OR for Msk1 (OR, 1.19; 95% CI, 1.08-1.30), Msk1b (1.13; 1.05-1.21), and Msk2 (1.09; 1.02-1.18); the OR for Msk1a was 1.07 (0.99-1.16; P = .07). Secondary and sensitivity analyses revealed higher adjusted ORs for statin users in all outcome groups. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Musculoskeletal conditions, arthropathies, injuries, and pain are more common among statin users than among similar nonusers. The full spectrum of statins' musculoskeletal adverse events may not be fully explored, and further studies are warranted, especially in physically active individuals.
Defining Roles for HOX and MEIS1 Genes in Induction of Acute Myeloid Leukemia

ABSTRACT Complex genetic and biochemical interactions between HOX proteins and members of the TALE (i.e., PBX and MEIS) family have been identified in embryonic development, and some of these interactions also appear to be important for leukemic transformation. We have previously shown that HOXA9 collaborates withMEIS1 in the induction of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). In this report, we demonstrate that HOXB3, which is highly divergent from HOXA9, also genetically interacts withMEIS1, but not with PBX1, in generating AML. In addition, we show that the HOXA9 and HOXB3genes play key roles in establishing all the main characteristics of the leukemias, while MEIS1 functions only to accelerate the onset of the leukemic transformation. Contrasting the reported functional similarities between PREP1 and MEIS1, such as PBX nuclear retention, we also show that PREP1 overexpression is incapable of accelerating the HOXA9-induced AML, suggesting that MEIS1 function in transformation must entail more than PBX nuclear localization. Collectively, these data demonstrate thatMEIS1 is a common leukemic collaborator with two structurally and functionally divergent HOX genes and that, in this collaboration, the HOX gene defines the identity of the leukemia.
Increased activity of some enzymes in serum in cases of severely decompensated diabetes, with and without ketoacidosis.

In each of 10 highly hyperglycemic decompensated diabetics with ketoacidosis, we found a markedly increased serum activity of two lysosomal hydrolases (N-acetyl-β-glucosaminidase and β-glucuronidase). This was also true to a lesser degree of five diabetics with less severe decompensation and without ketoacidosis. The activity of both enzymes and the degree of hyperglycemia were highly correlated. We think these enzymatic changes result from a process of activation and release of tissue lysosomal enzymes, probably occurring in connection with the increased catabolism present in decompensated diabetes. Nonlysosomal (cytoplasmic or mitochondrial) enzymes were less changed (aspartate and alanine aminotransferases) or normal (aldolase, lactate- and malate dehydrogenase, and creatine kinase). This indicates that tissue damage alone could not account for the increased activity of the two lysosomal hydrolases; it therefore seems primarily to be due to involvement of lysosomes.
Dynamics of Market Structure and Competitiveness of the Banking Sector in India and its Impact on Output and Prices of Banking Services

The paper examines the nature and the extent of changes in the market concentration in the Indian banking sector and their possible implications on prices and output of banking services. The first part of the paper attempts to measure market concentration in banking in India in alternative ways from 1989-90 to 2000-01. In contrast to earlier empirical applications on banking, it focuses on both static and dynamic measures of market concentration. The paper finds a strong evidence of change in the market structure in banking in India. Interestingly, results reveal that a major part of the change in market structure occurred during the early 1990s. Despite a spate of mergers during the late 1990s, market concentration was not significantly affected. It is also observed that the different concentration ratios rank the changes similarly over time. The second part of the paper analyses the possible impact of changes in banking market structure on prices and output of this sector during the same period. It is demonstrated that measurement problem of real output pertaining to banking sector in the national income data could be severe. The implied inflation as obtained through the GDP deflator for the banking sector in India led to unbelievable measures of inflation for banking services, casting some doubt on the methodology adopted. Alternatively, proxy price measures based on the spread appear to be more consistent with the changes in market structure in India during the late 1990s. The paper argues that the favourable market structure in India could be one important factor that led to a reduction in the ‘prices’ of banking services after the administered interest regime was lifted.
Innovation in Mutual Fund Portfolios: Implications for Fund Alpha and Risk

This study introduces a new measure of portfolio holdings that has power to explain future fund abnormal returns. This measure is defined as "return on portfolio innovation. " It is constructed as the return on completely new portfolio positions that a fund has not held before. I evaluate the return on newly added positions because their performance can signal the quality of managerial effort. On average, a one-standard deviation increase in the return on innovation increases the Carhart (1997) four-factor fund alpha by approximately 0.34 to 0.52 percent per year. In addition, although overall fund performance is inversely related to future risk-taking, higher returns on innovation are associated with greater risk. The results have important implications for fund performance and manager behavior.
Dietary folate intake and the risk of 11 types of cancer: a case-control study in Uruguay.

BACKGROUND There is limited, but inconclusive, epidemiological evidence that high folate intake decreases the risk of colorectal and esophageal cancers. For other cancer sites, the evidence is even less consistent or extensive. MATERIALS AND METHODS We conducted a case-control study of dietary folate intake and risk of 11 cancer sites in Uruguay between 1996 and 2004, including 3539 cancer cases and 2032 hospital controls. Unconditional logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of cancer associated with folate intake. RESULTS In the multivariable model, there was a significant decrease in the risk of cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx (OR = 0.49, 95% CI 0.24-0.98), esophagus (OR = 0.29, 95% CI 0.14-0.60), upper aerodigestive tract (OR = 0.41, 95% CI 0.26-0.65), colorectum (OR = 0.42, 95% CI 0.23-0.76) and kidney (OR = 0.35, 95% CI 0.13-0.93) for the highest versus the lowest quartile of dietary folate intake. CONCLUSIONS Our results not only confirm earlier findings of decreased risk of colorectal and esophageal cancers with a high dietary folate intake but also suggest decreased risk of several other cancers. However, we cannot exclude the possibility that residual confounding, multiple comparisons or other forms of bias could explain these results.
How Does Option Listing Affect Underlying Stock Efficiency? Evidence from a Duration Model

We empirically investigate the effect of option listing on the underlying stock efficiency by examining the stock price duration dynamic and the informed trading activity around option listing. We use univariate tests and extended Log-ACD models that account for liquidity. Despite a significant increase in the price duration, option listing seems not to deteriorate the underlying stock efficiency. The results reject a permanent change in the informed trading activity but suggest a positive intraday seasonal impact. However, this result is not confirmed for low volume stocks. Furthermore, Euronext and Liffe merger in 2002 seems to have an impact on the duration process and the efficiency of underlying stocks.
Organizational Culture and Knowledge Sharing: Empirical Evidence from Service Organizations

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between organizational cultural elements and knowledge sharing. This is a quantitative research by nature. A questionnaire is derived from previous studies. The survey covered seven service organizations in Bangladesh. Regression was adopted to test hypotheses. Out of the four independent variables, trust, communication between staff, and leadership were found to have a positive and significant relationship with knowledge sharing. A surprising finding of this study is that reward system does not have any impact on knowledge sharing. It is reasonable here to conclude that knowledge sharing can be successful in the service industry in Bangladesh with given emphasis on trust, communication between staff and leadership.
Highly Sensitive Detection of EGFR T790M Mutation Using Colony Hybridization Predicts Favorable Prognosis of Patients with Lung Cancer Harboring Activating EGFR Mutation

Introduction: Approximately 50% of lung cancer patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-mutations (deletion in exon 19 or L858R) who develop acquired resistance to EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) reportedly carry a secondary EGFR T790M mutation. This mutation has been suggested to be present in tumor cells before EGFR-TKI treatment in a small population of individuals. Here, we use a highly sensitive colony hybridization technique in an attempt to evaluate the actual incidence of T790M in pretreatment tumor specimens. Methods: DNA was extracted from surgically resected tumor tissues of 38 patients with the EGFR mutation and examined for the presence of T790M, using a standard polymerase chain reaction based method followed by a modified colony hybridization (CH) technique with an analytical sensitivity of approximately 0.01%. Associations between the T790M status and clinical characteristics including time to treatment failure (TTF) for EGFR-TKI were evaluated. Results: The T790M mutation analysis of the specimens from the 38 patients detected 30 mutants (79%). The median TTF was 9 months for the patients with pretreatment T790M and 7 months for the patients without the T790M mutation (p = 0.44). When the patients with T790M were divided into strongly positive and modestly positive subgroups in terms of the frequency of positive signals observed using CH technique, the 7 patients with strong positivity had a TTF that was significantly longer than that of the 8 patients without T790M (p = 0.0097) and of the 23 patients with modest positivity (p = 0.0019). Conclusions: Our highly sensitive CH method showed that a subgroup of non–small-cell lung cancer patients with the EGFR mutation harbored the rare T790M allele before EGFR-TKI treatment. A high proportion of T790M allele may define a clinical subset with a relatively favorable prognosis.
Optimal Investment and Production Across Markets with Stochastic Exchange Rates

All multinational firms face foreign exchange fluctuations, which can create unstable cash flows and even bankruptcy. Managers of these firms face critical questions over how to reduce the risk due to income and expenses in multiple currencies. Traditional financial risk controls include futures and options, but firms also can use operational controls, such as foreign production capacity. In this paper, we study these alternatives for a simplified single-product firm operating in a home market and a foreign market. We show that a firm's optimal policy favors financial controls for low volatility exchange rates and the operational control of foreign production capacity for higher volatilities. We also show that, when the cost to switch production from one market to another involves a fixed cost plus a proportional charge on production, the optimal production policy either places all production entirely in one market or the other and that critical exchange ratios determine when to switch production to the favorable market. We model the problem in continuous time with production shifts appearing as jumps, leading to a form of impulse control problem. We introduce this methodology to operations management studies as an effective tool for analyzing continuous-review production systems with discrete decision outcomes.
Recurrent Neural Networks for Semantic Instance Segmentation

We present a recurrent model for semantic instance segmentation that sequentially generates binary masks and their associated class probabilities for every object in an image. Our proposed system is trainable end-to-end from an input image to a sequence of labeled masks and, compared to methods relying on object proposals, does not require post-processing steps on its output. We study the suitability of our recurrent model on three different instance segmentation benchmarks, namely Pascal VOC 2012, CVPPP Plant Leaf Segmentation and Cityscapes. Further, we analyze the object sorting patterns generated by our model and observe that it learns to follow a consistent pattern, which correlates with the activations learned in the encoder part of our network. Source code and models are available at this https URL
Contesting retail space in Italy: competition and corporatism 1915-60

The article traces the course of the contests for retail space in Italy between 1915 and 1960, concentrating on the ways in which the forms of competition between retailers were framed by public policy, notably the introduction of a shop licensing system, and the accretion of powers by retailers' associations that enabled them to exercise a quasicorporate power to limit competition and innovation within the distribution sector. The key elements of this regulatory regime were introduced by the Fascists in the 1920s with the intent of reforming the sector, yet were appropriated by traditional retailers to defend their interests against innovations in the distribution sector.
Rapid Information Technology Change, Coping Mechanisms, and the Emerging Technologies Group

Information technology (IT) changes rapidly, seriously challenging IT management. In response, many organizations create a formal group of IT professionals to evaluate emerging IT so they can better cope with its change. A survey based on structured interviews was mailed to a nationwide sample of 1,000 IT organizations. Two hundred forty-six respondents provided data to identify categories of coping mechanisms to handle changing IT. Five categories emerged: Education and Training, Internal Procedures, Vendor Support, Consultant Support, and Endurance. Organizations apply Education and Training more extensively than the others. Thus the research contributes to understanding the means by which organizations cope with rapid IT change. The research also found that organizations with a group dedicated to investigating emerging IT cope more extensively, but not more successfully, than do those without one. Thus the research contributes not only by providing an understanding of how organizations cope with rapid IT change, but also by suggesting the need to achieve more from the group charged with emerging IT.
Gender and age as moderators in the service evaluation process

Purpose – Prior research exploring the relationships among sacrifice, service quality, value, satisfaction, and behavioral intentions in service evaluation models did not consider customer characteristics. This study aims to test the moderating effects of two demographic variables (i.e. gender and age) on all the relationships in the “comprehensive” service evaluation model.Design/methodology/approach – Responses from a diverse group of shoppers (n=2,727) in six retail categories (cosmetics, electronics, fashion, jewelry, telecom services, and department stores) were examined using structural equation modeling.Findings – The negative relationship between sacrifice and perceived value, and the positive association of perceived value and satisfaction with behavioral intentions, is stronger for the male and older customers; whereas the positive association of service quality with satisfaction and value is stronger for female and younger customers.Research limitations/implications – The study examined behavio.
A survey of the perceived usefulness of financial information disclosed on the internet to shareholders in Malaysia

Financial information dissemination is the need of the hour in the globalised scenario for meeting the needs of shareholders. This research seeks to identify the perceived usefulness of statutory, voluntary information and audit assurance (AA) disseminated on the internet to the shareholders. This study is empirical in nature. A questionnaire was developed and the responses were collected from the shareholders in Malaysia. Perceived usefulness for shareholders (PSH) is the dependent variable and four independent variables were financial statement (FS), corporate governance (CG), corporate information (CI), and AA. Structural equation modelling was used to confirm the results obtained. The findings of the study are consistent with existing studies done in other countries.
When much more of a difference makes a difference: Social comparison and tournaments in the CEO's top team

We integrate the seemingly contradictory theoretical predictions of behavioral and economic perspectives about the relationship between pay disparity and firm performance and show that tournament and social comparison theories are more supplementary than contradictory in nature. Our results show that high levels of firm performance will be found around either meaningfully low or meaningfully high levels of pay disparity. Additional findings indicate that this curvilinear relationship is weakened in the presence of both an heir apparent and high CEO power, and strengthened when top management team members are more eligible as CEOs. These findings suggest that factors that increase or inhibit social comparison or tournament perceptions among TMT members play a role in the strength of the curvilinear relationship between pay disparity and firm performance.
EVM simulation and its comparison with BER for different types of modulation

To characterize the quality of wireless telecommunications system more efficiently and integrally, it is necessary to use error vector magnitude (EVM) to be the figure of merit. We give the definition of EVM and do some more improvement by describing a typical normalization. We also have simulated EVM for various distortion and various modulation types for a given average symbol power from the basic equation, compared with the corresponding bit error rate (BER).
Determinants of environmental disclosure in the annual reports of large companies operating in Portugal

Similarly to what has happened in other countries, since the early 1990s Portuguese companies have developed corporate environmental reporting practices in response to internal and external factors. This paper is based on empirical research directed to both the study of environmental reporting practices developed by Portuguese companies and the identification of the factors that explain the extent to which these companies disclose environmental information. This study focuses on the environmental disclosures made in the annual reports by a sample of 109 large firms operating in Portugal during the period 2002–04. Using the content analysis technique we have developed an index in order to assess the presence of the environmental disclosures in companies' annual reports and their breadth. Based on the extant literature, several characteristics relating to firms' attributes were selected and their influence on the level of environmental disclosure was tested empirically. The selected explanatory variables were firm size, industry membership, profitability, foreign ownership, quotation on the stock market and environmental certification. The results reveal that, in spite of the fact that the level of environmental information disclosed during the period 2002–04 is low, the extent of environmental disclosure has increased as well as the number of Portuguese companies that disclose environmental information. Moreover, the firm size and the fact that a company is listed on the stock market are positively related to the extent of environmental disclosure. This study adds to the international research on environmental disclosure by providing empirical data from a country, Portugal, where empirical evidence is still relatively unknown, extending the scope of the current understanding of the environmental reporting practices. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Is Customer Participation in Value Creation a Double-Edged Sword? Evidence from Professional Financial Services across Cultures

Emergent perspectives in marketing highlight new opportunities for co-opting customers as a means to define and cocreate value through their participation. This study delineates and empirically tests hypotheses regarding the effects of customer participation (CP) on value creation and satisfaction for both customers and employees with different cultural value orientations in the context of professional financial services. Using data collected from 349 pairs of customers and service employees in two national groups (Hong Kong and the United States) of a global financial institution, this study examines how (1) CP drives performance outcomes (i.e., customer satisfaction, employee job satisfaction, and employee job performance) through the creation of economic and relational values and (2) the effects of CP on value creation depend on participants’ cultural value orientations. Promoting CP could be a double-edged sword for firms: CP enhances customers’ economic value attainment and strengthens the relational bond between customers and employees, but it also increases employees’ job stress and hampers their job satisfaction. Moreover, the effects of CP on value creation depend on the cultural values of both customers and service employees; this result implies that arranging customers and service employees with “matched” cultural value orientations could facilitate the creation of value through CP.