Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of real exchange rate depreciation on Import Tax Revenue in Kenya, 1970-2009

Taxation play a critical role in raising the resources needed for financing government activities in developing countries. On the other hand, the volatility of real exchange rate (RERs) has generated significant concern among academics and policy makers in view of its effects on macroeconomic variables such as tax revenue generation. This study therefore focuses on the effects of real exchange rates on import tax revenues in Kenya. The specific objectives o f the study were to determine the nature of the real exchange rates depreciations in Kenya from 1970 to 2009 and to establish the effects o f the depreciations on the import tax revenues in Kenya from 1970 to 2009. The study formulated a dynamic specification for the real custom duties function incorporating the error correction term which was then estimated using the ordinary least squares. The results showed that import price indices, inflation rates and lagged real custom duties have a negative effect on the real custom duties. A liberalized exchange rate regime as introduced in Kenya in 1993 was found to have a positive effect on the real custom duties. Results also showed that real exchange rate has a statistically significant negative effect on custom duties. An increase in the real exchange rate (depreciation) leads to imports being expensive hence discouraging imports. Consequently, import volumes decline reducing revenue from the imports. It is desirable to have a real exchange rate devoid of destabilizing effects on the economy.
Psychogeriatric Consultation Services: Effect and Effectiveness

Objectives: To determine the nature of referrals to a psychogeriatric consultation/outreach service, the types of interventions provided, and the effects and effectiveness of the service. Method: The study used a prospective approach in which 67 consecutive patients referred for psychogeriatric assessment were followed up 6 to 8 weeks after the initial assessment and then again 6 months after initial contact. Patients were rated at the time of referral and at follow-up on presence of psychiatric diagnosis, need for institutional care, and placement outcome. Results: Of the 67 patients initially seen, 51 (76%) experienced memory problems and 46 (69%) had depressed mood. Consistent with this finding, 36 (54%) were diagnosed by consultants as having a dementia, and 15 (22%) received a diagnosis of depression. The most frequent recommendations included medication changes in 34 cases (50%) and further assessments in 37 cases (55%). Although information at 6-week follow-up was available for only 58% (n = 38) of the sample, 18 (46%) patients were generally improved. Interestingly, only 12 (31%) of referring physicians indicated that they had followed the advice of the consultants. Cognitive impairment and depressive symptoms were major concerns among referring physicians. The most common recommendation made involved pharmacotherapy. While compliance of family doctors to recommendations made was poor, patients improved over time. Patients requiring inpatient assessment were very old, living alone, experiencing behavioural problems, and not depressed. Conclusions: Psychogeriatric consultations appear most useful in cases where patients are more severely affected and/or are suffering from a greater range of symptoms.
The motor cost of telling lies: Electrocortical signatures and personality foundations of spontaneous deception

Although universal, lying is generally considered immoral behavior. Most neuroscience studies on lying sanction or instruct deceptive behaviors and thus might fail to acknowledge the significance of lie-related moral conflicts. By combining electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings with a novel paradigm in which participants decided freely whether to deceive another person, we have generated indices of the cognitive (reaction times and stimulus-locked event-related components) and moral (readiness potential and its correlations with deception-related personality traits) cost of spontaneous deception. Our data fail to support the consensus that deception is cognitively more demanding than truth telling, suggesting that spontaneous deception, as opposed to lying out of requirement, might not mandate additional cognitive workload. Interestingly, lying was associated with decreased motor readiness, an event-related potential (ERP) component that is linked to motor preparation of self-determined actions and modulated when we face moral dilemmas. Notably, this reduction was less extensive in manipulative participants and greater in those who cared highly about their impression management. Our study expands on previous findings on deception by associating a cortical marker of reduced preparation to act with individual differences in moral cognition.
CONCEPTS OF TRANSTIBIAL AMPUTATION: BURGESS TECHNIQUE VERSUS MODIFIED BRÜCKNER PROCEDURE

The technique of a long posterior myocutaneous flap described by Ernest M. Burgess in the late 1960s is one of the most frequent procedures for below‐knee amputations worldwide. To account for some potential problems associated with this procedure in patients with occlusive arterial disease, Lutz Brückner developed a modified amputation technique for transtibial amputation in the 1980s. Although this new standardized procedure has been widely used in Germany, it is not well known outside central Europe, secondary to its lack of description in English published work. In this review article, we describe a comparison of the technical aspects of the Burgess procedure with the modified Brückner technique for transtibial amputations. In addition, the charts of 69 consecutive patients with end‐stage occlusive arterial disease undergoing below‐knee amputation by either of the two standardized procedures (Burgess, n = 29; Brückner, n = 40) were reviewed. The clinical results of the two procedures are reported and compared. Review of the German published work suggests that the two techniques for transtibial amputation in patients with occlusive arterial disease appear to have similar results. This is further supported by data from our own 10‐year experience with 69 patients undergoing below‐knee amputation by either of the two standardized procedures. This suggests that the Brückner technique is at least equivalent to the Burgess procedure with regard to the clinical outcome in patients with occlusive arterial disease. The potential advantages of the standardized modified Brückner procedure compared with the ‘classical’ Burgess technique for transtibial amputation remain to be assessed in prospective multicentre trials.
Incorporation of chelator into guinea‐pig rods shows that calcium mediates mammalian photoreceptor light adaptation.

1. The effects of steady light on the sensitivity and kinetics of the photocurrent response were studied in the rod photoreceptors of the guinea‐pig, using suction pipette recordings of circulating current. 2. The sensitivity of the flash response decreased with increasing background intensity according to Weber's law. Ultimately for the brightest backgrounds saturation ensued. The recovery phase of the flash response was accelerated by steady light, while the early rising phase was little affected. 3. These results indicate that guinea‐pig rods adapt to light in much the same way as do the rods and cones of lower vertebrates. 4. The role of cytoplasmic calcium concentration in this adaptation was studied by incorporation of the calcium chelator bis(o‐aminophenoxy)ethane‐ N,N,N',N'‐tetraacetic acid (BAPTA) into the rod cytoplasm. Superfusion with a solution containing the membrane‐permeant acetoxymethyl ester resulted in progressive changes in the response to light. 5. BAPTA incorporation retarded the falling phase of the flash response, thereby increasing receptor sensitivity, but did not affect the early rising phase of the response. BAPTA also slowed the adaptation of the response to steady illumination. 6. These results indicate that cytoplasmic calcium concentration plays a similar role in the light adaptation of guinea‐pig rods to that in the adaptation of the rods and cones of lower vertebrates. Calcium therefore appears to act as the messenger of light adaptation in mammalian rods.
Comparison of Primary Physician Patterns of and Attitudes on Emergency Department Use

Objective This study aimed to compare physician viewpoints and clinic patterns between primary care providers (PCPs) with high patient emergency department (ED) use (HU) and PCPs with low patient ED use (LU). Methods We conducted a mixed methods descriptive study of quantitative and qualitative data of 22 practices. We compared admission rates, American Academy of Pediatrics guideline adherence, efficiency, medical complexity, and patient satisfaction. Primary care provider interviews regarding ED use practices and perspectives were coded and inductively analyzed using Atlas 6.0 for themes. Results Compared with LU, the HU group had a higher admission rate (92 vs 41 admissions per 1000 members, P = 0.005), lower scores in adherence to American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines, and higher scores in satisfaction overall. There were no significant differences in efficiency, medical complexity, PCP communications, timeliness for appointment, satisfaction with after-hour care or likelihood of PCP referral. All PCPs described the EDs’ purpose as for things they “cannot handle. ” The LU group was more likely to identify the ED for emergencies, whereas the HU group had a broader, more ambiguous definition of what they “cannot handle,” with parental anxiety identified as a significant factor. In addition, the LU group recognized the need for more parental education about ED use. Conclusions Primary care providers with low patient ED use were more likely to describe the EDs’ purpose as being for emergencies and to recognize a need for more parental education about the use of the ED. All physicians struggled with reassuring parents.
A prospective 1-year clinical and radiographic study of implants placed after maxillary sinus floor augmentation with bovine hydroxyapatite and autogenous bone.

PURPOSE The purposes of this study were 1) to evaluate the survival rate of implants placed in maxillary sinuses augmented with bovine hydroxyapatite and autogenous bone 6 months before implant surgery and 2) to estimate dimensional changes of the bone graft with time using a new radiographic method. PATIENTS AND METHODS Thirty maxillary sinuses in 20 consecutive patients with severe resorption (mean, 3.8 mm of remaining alveolar bone) were augmented with a mixture of 80% bovine hydroxyapatite and 20% autogenous bone mixed with fibrin glue to enable the placement of screw-shaped dental implants. After 6 months of primary healing, 108 implants were placed and followed with clinical and radiographic examinations during the first year of loading. Measurements of changes in height, width, and length of the grafted material were made on tomographic Scanora (Soredex Orion Corporation Ltd, Helsinki, Finland) and panoramic radiographs taken 3 and 12 months after grafting and after 1 year of bridge loading. RESULTS Ten implants in 6 patients were lost during the study (9 before loading and 1 after 1 year of functional loading), for a survival rate of 90.7%. All patients received fixed restorations, and the bridge survival rate was 100% after 1 year of loading. Small (<10%) but statistically significant dimensional changes in the grafted material were seen during the study period. CONCLUSIONS Acceptable short-term results can be obtained with implants placed after the use of bovine hydroxyapatite and autogenous bone for maxillary sinus floor augmentation. These grafts show good resistance to resorption.
Oxidative folding of small Tims is mediated by site‐specific docking onto Mia40 in the mitochondrial intermembrane space

Oxidative folding in the mitochondrial intermembrane space (IMS) is crucial for the import of certain cysteine‐rich IMS proteins. The essential proteins Mia40 and Erv1 are key components for this mechanism functioning as a disulphide protein cascade that is functionally linked to the respiratory chain by shuttling electrons onto CytC. The subunits of the chaperone complex Tim9–Tim10 require Mia40 for their biogenesis. Previously, it was shown that the four cysteines of Tim10 are crucial for folding and assembly, that they are connected intramolecularly into an inner and an outer disulphide bridge, and that the inner disulphide has a more prominent role in these processes. Here we show that interaction with Mia40 is a site‐specific event: (i) the N‐terminal first cysteine of the precursor is crucial for docking onto Mia40 via a mixed disulphide; (ii) release is triggered by disulphide pairing of the C‐terminal cysteine onto the N‐terminal one; and (iii) formation of the inner disulphide between the second and third cysteines apparently precedes the release reaction and is critical for assembly with Tim9. The Tim10–Mia40 interaction is independent of divalent cations, any other mitochondrial proteins or membranes, and is shown to occur efficiently in organello and in vitro.
A 160μW 8-channel active electrode system for EEG monitoring

An important drawback of current biopotential monitoring systems is their dependence on gel electrodes, which can dry out, cause skin irritation, and necessitate skilled personnel. These associated drawbacks increase the running costs and significantly hamper their use in consumer healthcare and lifestyle applications. Unfortunately, the use of gel-free, or dry, electrodes increases the electrode-tissue contact impedance, thus exacerbating the effects of interference and cable motion artifacts. A solution is the use of active electrodes, i.e. electrodes in which an amplifier with high input impedance, low noise and good electrode offset rejection is co-integrated (Fig. 17.1.1). Previous active electrodes employed voltage buffers to facilitate the inter-channel gain matching necessary to achieve high CMRR [1]. However, low-noise buffers consume significant power and due to their lack of gain still require a low-noise and thus power-hungry back-end to keep the total integrated noise at acceptable levels. To reduce the total power dissipation, this paper proposes a biopotential monitoring system based on active electrodes with gain.
Not Every Kind of Outward FDI Increases Parent Firm Performance: The Case of New EU Member States

ABSTRACT Using a large firm-level dataset we investigate what kind of firms from new EU member states from Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs) tend to invest abroad (testing of self-selection hypothesis), and what is the impact of outward FDI on their productivity (testing of learning-by-investing hypothesis). We find that the best firms tend to self-select into outward FDI. There is also a positive effect of outward FDI on productivity growth of investing firms from CEECs, the strongest being in the case of Estonia, Romania, Czech Republic, and Slovakia. The positive impact of becoming a first-time foreign investor is relatively long lasting, but comes into effect only in investments in Western European or other CEECs and in the case of manufacturing subsidiaries.
Ethnic Favoritism in Education in Kenya

Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 2016, 11: 1–58 Ethnic Favoritism in Education in Kenya Eric Kramon 1 and Daniel N. Posner 2∗ 1 Department of Political Science, George Washington University, 2115 G St. NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA; ekramon@gwu.edu 2 Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles, 4289 Bunche Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1472, USA; dposner@polisci.ucla. edu ABSTRACT We test the claim that African leaders favor members of their own ethnic groups by studying ethnic favoritism in the education sector in Kenya. We use data on the educational attainment of more than fifty thousand Kenyans dating back to the colonial era, as well as information about the ethnic identities of Kenyan presidents, cabinet members, and high- level education bureaucrats since the 1960s. Consistent with previous work, we find that having a coethnic as president during one’s school-age years is associated with an increase in the schooling that children acquire. In contrast to recent studies, we find that multiparty political competition has no impact on the degree of ethnic favoritism in the educa- tion sector. We also go beyond prior work in three ways. First, we show that coethnics of the minister of education also acquire more schooling than children from other ethnic groups — evidence that ministerial appointments come with The authors thank members of the Working Group in African Political Economy (WGAPE) and seminar participants at Dartmouth, Georgetown, MIT, NBER, Oxford, Penn, Princeton, Rochester, Stanford, Virginia, Columbia, Hebrew University, the Supplementary Material available from: http://dx.doi. org/10.1561/100.00015005_supp MS submitted on 8 January 2015; final version received 15 September 2015 ISSN 1554-0626; DOI 10.1561/100.00015005 © 2016 E. Kramon and D. N. Posner
Management of anxiety after acute myocardial infarction.

BACKGROUND Anxiety is common after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and may induce complications and poorer outcome because of activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis. Little is known about critical care nurses' management of anxiety in the initial days after AMI. OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to describe pharmacological and nonpharmacological anxiety management practices in a sample of patients with AMI and to determine the association between patient self-reported anxiety level, clinician anxiety assessment, and subsequent anxiety management by clinicians. METHODS In this descriptive, correlational investigation, subjects (n = 101) were requested to complete the Spielberger State Anxiety Inventory (SAI) within 48 hours of hospital admission for AMI. After hospital discharge, the investigators performed a thorough medical records review to evaluate the use of pharmacological and nonpharmacological anxiety management strategies for the period that encompassed 12 hours before and 12 hours after administration of the SAI. RESULTS Subjects were primarily white (93%), married (72%) individuals with a hospital admission Killip classification of I (71%). Documentation of subjective anxiety assessment was found for only 45 subjects (44.6%). Subject rating of anxiety with SAI ranged from 20 (no anxiety) to 77 (extreme anxiety; mean, 37.2 +/- 12.4). Seventy-two subjects had documentation of anxiety management (pharmacological, 25.7%; nonpharmacological, 45.6%). No significant relationship was seen between the subject SAI score and the clinician assessment of anxiety (lambda = 0.03; P < .05). Although documentation was seen that 72 subjects received anxiety management, no association was found between the clinician evaluation of anxiety and the use of anxiety management strategies (pharmacological: lambda = 0.11; P = .65; nonpharmacological: lambda = 0.07; P = .08). A small but significant relationship was found between the subject SAI score and the use of pharmacological anxiety management (lambda = 0.10; P = .03) but no association was found between SAI score and the use of nonpharmacological anxiety management (lambda = 0.6; P = .50). Evaluation of efficacy was not routinely documented (pharmacological, 58%; nonpharmacological, 2%). Only 2 subjects (2%) received consultation to social work for management of anxiety. CONCLUSION Anxiety was not systematically and accurately assessed or logically managed in this sample of patients with AMI. Critical care clinicians need a comprehensive understanding about the importance of anxiety to patient outcome in addition to objective, reliable, and valid anxiety measures and a useful repertoire of evidence-based management strategies to effectively manage anxiety. Effective management of anxiety positively influences patient outcome and should be a goal for all critical care patients.
Clusterin/ApoJ enhances central leptin signaling through Lrp2‐mediated endocytosis

Hypothalamic leptin signaling plays a central role in maintaining body weight homeostasis. Here, we show that clusterin/ApoJ, recently identified as an anorexigenic neuropeptide, is an important regulator in the hypothalamic leptin signaling pathway. Coadministration of clusterin potentiates the anorexigenic effect of leptin and boosts leptin‐induced hypothalamic Stat3 activation. In cultured neurons, clusterin enhances receptor binding and subsequent endocytosis of leptin. These effects are mainly mediated through the LDL receptor‐related protein‐2 (Lrp2). Notably, inhibition of hypothalamic clusterin, Lrp2 or endocytosis abrogates anorexia and hypothalamic Stat3 activation caused by leptin. These findings propose a novel regulatory mechanism in central leptin signaling pathways.
Responses to discrimination and psychiatric disorders among Black, Hispanic, female, and lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals.

OBJECTIVES We examined associations between perceived discrimination due to race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender; responses to discrimination experiences; and psychiatric disorders. METHODS The sample included respondents in the 2004-2005 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (n = 34 653). We analyzed the associations between self-reported past-year discrimination and past-year psychiatric disorders as assessed with structured diagnostic interviews among Black (n = 6587); Hispanic (n = 6359); lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB; n = 577); and female (n = 20 089) respondents. RESULTS Black respondents reported the highest levels of past-year discrimination, followed by LGB, Hispanic, and female respondents. Across groups, discrimination was associated with 12-month mood (odds ratio [ORs] = 2.1-3.1), anxiety (ORs = 1.8-3.3), and substance use (ORs = 1.6-3.5) disorders. Respondents who reported not accepting discrimination and not discussing it with others had higher odds of psychiatric disorders (ORs = 2.9-3.9) than did those who did not accept discrimination but did discuss it with others. Black respondents and women who accepted discrimination and did not talk about it with others had elevated rates of mood and anxiety disorders, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Psychiatric disorders are more prevalent among individuals reporting past-year discrimination experiences. Certain responses to discrimination, particularly not disclosing it, are associated with psychiatric morbidity.