Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An empirical investigation of the impact of communication timing on customer equity

This research examines the impact of communication frequency on customer retention and spending and thus, ultimately, on a firm's Customer Equity (CE). We conduct an empirical study in the context of permission-based e-mail marketing in the entertainment industry and find that intercommunication timing has a dramatic impact on customer behavior. Message scheduling affects both attrition and the customer response and thus has a critical impact on the value of one's customer base. The impact of intercontact duration is asymmetric in that too long intercommunication time is less problematic than too short intercommunication time.
ADVERTISING SYMBOLS AND BRAND NAMES THAT BEST REPRESENT KEY PRODUCT MEANINGS

In order to distinguish their brands from other brands in the same category, most consumer products companies attempt to establish a unique personality for each brand. Rather than emphasize that it is a soft drink, Dr. Pepper emphasizes, through its name and advertising, that it is an “oddball” soft drink. This article recommends that these companies instead develop advertising and brand names that communicate the best qualities of the relevant product category. Dr. Pepper, for example, might emphasize that it tastes good and quenches thirst. This article suggests that marketers use free association tests to select advertising symbols and names that best communicate key product category benefits; it suggests that they use product categories and candidate symbols and names as stimuli, then match the answers across stimuli. In a sample test, for example, the stimulus “iced tea” drew the responses “refreshment,” “cool,” and “summer. ” In a separate test, the stimulus “plunge into swimming pool” drew identical responses. The Nestle Nestea “plunge” (into a pool) campaign, therefore, is thought to be a highly effective one.
Thoracoscopic Multilevel Anterior Instrumented Fusion in a Goat Model

Study Design. A survival study in a caprine model for evaluation of a thoracoscopic anterior scoliosis instrumentation construct for fusion. Objective. To compare the efficacy of performing multilevel anterior thoracoscopic “scoliosis” fusion with both allograft and autograft bone. Summary of Background Data. The use of minimally invasive thoracoscopic spinal surgery has been increasing. Until recently, instrumentation methods for correcting scoliosis entirely with a minimally invasive approach have not been available. Although multilevel thoracoscopic instrumentation and fusion now is in use clinically at some centers, reports of its effectiveness in an animal model are limited. Methods. A thoracoscopically implanted multilevel screw–rod instrumentation construct was used in a goat survival model, with fusion quality evaluated 16 weeks after surgery. Autogenous iliac crest bone graft was compared with an allogenic bone graft substitute. The quality of fusion was evaluated both radiographically and biomechanically. Results. Thoracoscopic insertion of a multilevel screw–rod construct was demonstrated to be technically feasible. However, with regard to the quality of fusion, only 47% of the disc space “fusion ratings” with the use of autogenous iliac crest graft were considered fully fused by computed tomography scan evaluation. This compares with no ratings of full fusion in the allograft demineralized bone group and only a single rating of full disc space fusion in the control group, which received no bone graft. Torsional range of motion was the smallest in the group receiving iliac crest bone graft and the greatest in the control animals that did not undergo bone grafting. Conclusions. The lack of complete fusion at 4 months in the autogenous iliac crest group emphasizes the importance of the discectomy and bone grafting technique. The use of demineralized bone allograft as a sole source of interbody fusion is not supported.
The Enhanced liver fibrosis score is associated with clinical outcomes and disease progression in patients with chronic liver disease

Current tools for risk stratification of chronic liver disease subjects are limited. We aimed to determine whether the serum‐based ELF (Enhanced Liver Fibrosis) test predicted liver‐related clinical outcomes, or progression to advanced liver disease, and to compare the performance of ELF to liver biopsy and non‐invasive algorithms.
Empirical Verification of the Accuracy of Valuation Estimates Emanating From Nigerian Valuers: A Case Study of Lagos Metropolis

There have been increasing criticisms of the ability of Nigerian valuers to undertake investment valuations in a reliable and accurate manner. This study sought to examine with a view to validating or dispensing the criticisms as to whether Nigerian valuers are capable of undertaking investment valuations in a reliable and accurate manner or not. To achieve this aim, the paper employed quasi-experimental survey methods. Forty five (45) estate surveying and valuation firms were sampled in Lagos Metropolis, the study area. The study used both descriptive and inferential statistics. The study revealed a wide variance of valuation estimates from the sale prices of the twelve properties sampled which indicated that the valuation estimates are not accurate and reliable. The study concluded that the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers and Estate Surveyors and Valuation Registration Board of Nigeria (the two bodies responsible for the regulation of the valuation profession in the country) should take up the responsibility of ensuring that variance in valuation is minimised by way of providing databank in order to provide more meaningful valuation advice.
Activity of deacetylase inhibitor panobinostat (LBH589) in cutaneous T‐cell lymphoma models: Defining molecular mechanisms of resistance

Panobinostat (LBH589) is a highly potent deacetylase inhibitor that has demonstrated clinical efficacy in patients with advanced cutaneous T‐cell lymphoma (CTCL). To gain a better understanding of the compound activity in this tumor type, we investigated the cellular and molecular effects of panobinostat using both in vitro and in vivo models of CTCL. All 4 tested CTCL cell lines exhibited very high sensitivity to panobinostat‐induced growth inhibition. However, only 2 of 4 lines exhibited significant response to the cytotoxic activity of panobinostat. In a CTCL xenograft mouse tumor model, panobinostat treatment resulted in complete tumor regression. The difference in cell sensitivity to panobinostat‐induced death enabled us to further investigate potential mechanisms responsible for tumor sensitivity or resistance. In CTCL cell lines that were insensitive to panobinostat‐induced apoptosis, constitutively activated NF‐κB and high levels of Bcl‐2 were observed. Inhibition of Bcl‐2 sensitized cells to the cytotoxic activity of panobinostat. Conversely, knockdown of Bax diminished the CTCL cell sensitivity. Interestingly, panobinostat could induce cytotoxicity in vorinostat‐resistant CTCL cells by downregulating phosphorylated STAT3 and STAT5 proteins. These studies suggest distinct mechanisms responsible for resistance to different deacetylase inhibitors. We show that the intrinsic apoptotic signaling plays an essential role in mediating panobinostat anticancer activity. Moreover, cancer cell sensitivity to panobinostat treatment may be further improved by combination with inhibition of anti‐apoptotic factors. These data provide preclinical support that panobinostat, as a single agent or in combination with other anticancer agents, is a promising therapy for CTCL.
Productivity Gains after Outward FDI: Evidence from Slovenia

This paper analyzes whether firms that engage in outward foreign direct investment, experience productivity gains in their domestic plants. To this end, we apply the methodology of De Loecker (2013) to firm-level data on the Slovenian manufacturing industry from 1994 to 2002. Our findings indicate that firms that invested abroad experience a higher productivity growth than firms that did not, controlling for many relevant variables such as past productivity, export status and industry of the firm. The gains only occur for investments outside of former Yugoslavia. They are larger for initially more productive firms and only occur some years after the investment.
Work in progress - effects of instructional delivery messages and media in a digital signal processing course

In a digital signal processing (DSP) course for senior electrical engineering majors, students received two different types of instructional delivery messages (online text only and text along with a simulation tool: MATLAB) via two different types of instructional delivery media (desktop PC and personal digital assistant (PDA)). An experimental study was designed to investigate the potential main effects and the interaction of these two independent variables: instructional delivery message and instructional delivery media on three dependent variables: students' learning achievement, their intention, and satisfaction to use those instructional strategies. This study was a 2 times 2 randomized post-test design. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to analyze the collected data. Significant results were found in independent variables. However, there was no significant interaction found between the two studied independent variables for all the three dependent measures
Securitisation and Pricing of Flood Insurance: A market consistent approach

The idea in this paper was conceived in 2003 when severe floods in Kent, England, triggered many insurance companies declared large residential areas in the region as uninsurable zone. For the individual household actors in the economy, this is a classic example of market breakdown. Here, we show one way to price flood insurance that is consistent with pricing theory that is fundamental in Finance. In this framework, market is complete in which a pricing kernel exists. With the assumption that floods can be modelled using rainfall data, prices of flood insurance cover can be priced as options on a transformed gamma distribution. The resulting pricing formulae is closed form and preference free. To make our pricing framework market consistent, an asset specific pricing kernel can be inferred from prices of insurance contracts of household in other part of the country. Using rainfall precipitation data for England and Wales from 1766 to 2007, collected from UK Met Office, we demonstrate the flexibility of the transformed gamma option pricing model in pricing different types of flood driven payoff functions.
Nanoscale polymer carriers to deliver chemotherapeutic agents to tumours

Nanoscale polymer carriers have the potential to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of antitumour drugs as they can regulate their release, improve their stability and prolong circulation time by protecting the drug from elimination by phagocytic cells or premature degradation. Moreover, nanoscale polymeric carriers are capable of accumulating in tumour cells and tissues due to enhanced permeability and retention effect or by active targeting bearing ligands designed to recognise overexpressed tumour-associated antigens. The diversity in the polymer structures being studied as drug carriers in cancer therapy allows an optimal solution for a particular drug to be provided regarding its delivery and efficacy, and thus the patient’s quality of life. This review is focused on the different types of nanoscale polymer carriers used for the delivery of chemotherapeutic agents and on the factors that affect their cellular uptake and trafficking.
ESSAYS ON FINANCIAL STATEMENT QUALITY: THE INFLUENCE AND THE EFFECTS OF ACCOUNTING RESTATEMENTS

This paper examines the impact of announcing an accounting restatement on a firm’s cost of public debt. While prior literature (e.g., Anderson and Yohn (2002), Palmrose et al. (2004), Hirschey et al. (2003)) mainly pays attention to the stock market reaction after the announcement of a restatement, the bond market’s response is here studied. Based on a sample of 143 bonds of U.S. restating firms, results indicate an increase in the cost of public debt around the restatement announcement of on average 6.2%. Furthermore, we report that the bond market penalizes restating firms additionally when the exact quantification of the materiality of the restatement is not stated at the announcement and the materiality of the correction is larger. This latter is only valid for overrestating firms. In contrast to the reaction of the bondholders, the reaction of the equity holders is indifferently whether the reported quantification of the materiality at the announcement is exact or not; and the stockholders’ reaction is more negative when the materiality of the restatement is larger.
Health care waste management in Port Harcourt Metropolis

The study was designed to evaluate the management of health care waste among various health care establishments both in the public and private sectors in Port Harcourt metropolis. This will help to stimulate further research in this neglected aspect of health care management and make for more effective health care delivery. Sixty questionnaires were distributed randomly among the staff of fifteen health facilities. The instrument was structured to accommodate issues such as availability of unit responsible for the management of health care waste, level of awareness of the risk associated with health care waste and the level of efficiency of the unit. Fifty nine of the questionnaires were retrieved and studied. Twenty six (44.1%) of the respondents were within the private sector, the rest were in the public health establishments. Most establishments had health care waste dumpsites as indicated by the 34 (57.6%) respondents. However only 9.1% of those in primary health care establishments as against 55.6% in tertiary establishments had vehicles for transportation of wastes. Only 35 (59.3%) admitted that their establishments had an established waste management unit. Fourteen (i.e less than 50% of those that have units reported that the management of wastes in their unit was effectively carried out. Knowledge of the potential hazards of health care waste does not automatically translate to effective management of wastes. There is a strong relationship between inadequate health care waste management and the prevalence of nosocomial diseases. Health care waste management is so imperative for efficient health care delivery that urgent and a multi-sectoral collaboration is needed to make it effective.
Impact of the Secretome of Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells on Brain Structure and Animal Behavior in a Rat Model of Parkinson's Disease

Research in the last decade strongly suggests that mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)‐mediated therapeutic benefits are mainly due to their secretome, which has been proposed as a possible therapeutic tool for the treatment of Parkinson's disease (PD). Indeed, it has been shown that the MSC secretome increases neurogenesis and cell survival, and has numerous neuroprotective actions under different conditions. Additionally, using dynamic culturing conditions (through computer‐controlled bioreactors) can further modulate the MSC secretome, thereby generating a more potent neurotrophic factor cocktail (i.e., conditioned medium). In this study, we have characterized the MSC secretome by proteomic‐based analysis, investigating its therapeutic effects on the physiological recovery of a 6‐hydroxidopamine (6‐OHDA) PD rat model. For this purpose, we injected MSC secretome into the substantia nigra (SNc) and striatum (STR), characterizing the behavioral performance and determining histological parameters for injected animals versus untreated groups. We observed that the secretome potentiated the increase of dopaminergic neurons (i.e., tyrosine hydroxylase‐positive cells) and neuronal terminals in the SNc and STR, respectively, thereby supporting the recovery observed in the Parkinsonian rats’ motor performance outcomes (assessed by rotarod and staircase tests). Finally, proteomic characterization of the MSC secretome (through combined mass spectrometry analysis and Bioplex assays) revealed the presence of important neuroregulatory molecules, namely cystatin C, glia‐derived nexin, galectin‐1, pigment epithelium‐derived factor, vascular endothelial growth factor, brain‐derived neurotrophic factor, interleukin‐6, and glial cell line‐derived neurotrophic factor. Overall, we concluded that the use of human MSC secretome alone was able to partially revert the motor phenotype and the neuronal structure of 6‐OHDA PD animals. This indicates that the human MSC secretome could represent a novel therapeutic for the treatment of PD. Stem Cells Translational Medicine 2017;6:634–646
Immune Response to Hepatitis B Vaccine in Health-Care Workers

Health care workers (HCWs) constitute a high-risk population of HBV infection. There are limited data on the efficacy of vaccination in HCWs in Egypt. The aim of this study was to evaluate the immune response to hepatitis B recombinant vaccine in HCWs in our hospital. Methods: 100 HCWs who completed three doses of intramuscular immunization with recombinant DNA hepatitis B vaccine (Engerix-B) at different time periods during the last 5 years were examined for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBs Ag), anti hepatitis B surface antibodies (anti HBs Abs) and hepatitis B core antibodies (HBc Abs). Results: 96% of HCWs showed seroconversion (anti HBs ≥ 10 IU/L); 92% good responders (anti HBs > 100 IU/L) and 4% weak responders (anti HBs = 10-100 IU/L). The HBsAg and HBc Ab were never detected among the entire responders. Younger age had higher anti HBs titer than older HCWs. The non responders were 4%; two of them had evidence of chronic hepatitis B infection. Conclusion: Vaccination against HBV in HCWs in Egypt is cost effective and achieved good response rate. Screening for Hepatitis B infection before vaccination should be considered to detect those with undiagnosed infection.
Multi-Stream Deep Similarity Learning Networks for Visual Tracking

Visual tracking has achieved remarkable success in recent decades, but it remains a challenging problem due to appearance variations over time and complex cluttered background. In this paper, we adopt a tracking-by-verification scheme to overcome these challenges by determining the patch in the subsequent frame that is most similar to the target template and distinctive to the background context. A multi-stream deep similarity learning network is proposed to learn the similarity comparison model. The loss function of our network encourages the distance between a positive patch in the search region and the target template to be smaller than that between positive patch and the background patches. Within the learned feature space, even if the distance between positive patches becomes large caused by the appearance change or interference of background clutter, our method can use the relative distance to distinguish the target robustly. Besides, the learned model is directly used for tracking with no need of model updating, parameter fine-tuning and can run at 45 fps on a single GPU. Our tracker achieves state-of-the-art performance on the visual tracking benchmark compared with other recent real-time-speed trackers, and shows better capability in handling background clutter, occlusion and appearance change.
Plasma colloid osmotic pressure and total protein trends in horses during anesthesia.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the changes in colloid osmotic pressure (COP) and total protein concentrations during routine general anesthesia in horses. STUDY DESIGN Prospective, clinical study. ANIMALS Twelve adult healthy horses aged 9.1 +/- 4.7 years and weighing 474 +/- 79 kg presented for elective surgery and 14 adult horses aged 8.7 +/- 7.3 years and weighing 510 +/- 85 kg. METHODS All horses were premedicated with xylazine and anesthesia induced with ketamine, diazepam and guaifenesin, and maintained with isoflurane for 2.5 hours. Lactate Ringer's solution was administered at 11 mL kg(-1) hour(-1). Osmolality, COP, electrolytes, glucose, and lactate were measured with specific commercial analyzers. Total protein (TP) was determined with a refractometer and packed cell volume with centrifuged capillary tubes. In the second group of 14 horses samples were taken from both venous and arterial sites simultaneously and the above measurements performed. RESULTS Before anesthesia, COP and TP were 22.2 +/- 2 mmHg and 6.9 +/- 0.4 g dL(-1), respectively. Within 15 minutes of anesthetic induction, COP and TP decreased significantly (19.9 +/- 1.9 mmHg and 6.3 +/- 1.9 g dL(-1); p < 0.01). During anesthesia COP and TP decreased in a linear form (COP r2 = 0.96 and TP r2 = 0.97). The COP and TP were 15 +/- 1.3 mmHg and 5.1 +/- 0.2 g dL(-1) at the end of anesthesia. Calculation of COP from TP values failed to accurately predict measured COP. Simultaneous arterial and venous samples in the 14 anesthetized horses yielded no differences for COP or TP. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE The data indicate that COP, like TP, decreases over the course of routine anesthetic management of horses and venous versus arterial samples should reveal comparable information.
The Intravenous Anesthetic Propofol Inhibits Human L‐Type Calcium Channels by Enhancing Voltage‐Dependent Inactivation

Propofol is commonly used to induce anesthesia but has been associated with some negative cardiovascular side effects, including negative inotropy, hypotension, and bradycardia. This study investigated the effect of propofol on L‐type calcium current in acutely isolated human atrial myocytes to better understand the mechanism of these side effects. After informed consent was obtained, the atrial appendage was obtained from patients undergoing open‐heart surgery who required cardiopulmonary bypass. Atrial myocytes were isolated using enzymatic digestion, and L‐type calcium currents were recorded using the whole‐cell patch clamp technique. Propofol enhanced the magnitude and speed of voltage‐dependent inactivation of L‐current. As a result, the propofol‐induced inhibition was increased by protocols that increased inactivation such as longer voltage step duration, holding potential depolarization, and increased pulsing frequency. The preferential enhancement of L‐channel inactivation by propofol can explain the associated cardiovascular side effects. The depolarized resting potential of arterial smooth muscle may render the L‐channels in these cells particularly sensitive to propofol‐induced inhibition, which could explain the hypotension observed in some patients. The enhancement of both inactivation kinetics and steady‐state inactivation by propofol can also explain the negative inotropic effect. However, the enhanced voltage‐dependent inactivation and use dependence could have beneficial effects for patients prone to certain arrhythmias and tachycardia.
Leading Indicators of Banking Crises: Was Asia Different?

This paper examines episodes of the banking system distress and crisis in a large sample of countries. The empirical results identify several macroeconomic and financial variables as useful leading indicators. The main macroeconomic indicators were of limited value in predicting the Asian crises; the best warning signs were proxies for the vulnerability of the banking and corporate sector. Full-blown banking crises are shown to be more associated with external developments, and domestic variables are the main leading indicators of severe but contained banking distress.