Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effectiveness of Digital Marketing in the Challenging Age: An Empirical Study

Marketers are faced with new challenges and opportunities within this digital age. Digital marketing is the utilization of electronic media by the marketers to promote the products or services into the market. The main objective of digital marketing is attracting customers and allowing them to interact with the brand through digital media. This article focuses on the importance of digital marketing for both marketers and consumers. We examine the effect of digital marketing on the firmsâ€™ sales. Additionally the differences between traditional marketing and digital marketing in this paper are presented. This study has described various forms of digital marketing, effectiveness of it and the impact it has on firmâ€™s sales. The examined sample consists of one hundred fifty firms and fifty executives which have been randomly selected to prove the effectiveness of digital marketing. Collected data has been analyzed with the help of various statistical tools and techniques.
The Impact of Corporate Diversification on the Financial Performance of U.S. Bank Holding Companies Pre and Post the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999

The Impact of Corporate Diversification on the Financial Performance of U.S. Bank Holding Companies Pre and Post the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 by Ahmed Oweis Claremont Graduate University: 2012 The Financial Services Modernization Act, also known as the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), of 1999 has permitted U.S. bank holding companies (BHCs) to operate in non-banking activities that are financial in nature. This dissertation addresses the impact of this across-activity diversification within the U.S. financial services industry on the profitability and the riskadjusted performance of bank holding companies. Using a variety of diversification measures, the study analyzes the relationship between corporate diversification and the financial performance of BHCs preand post-GLBA, from 1990 to 2011. The analysis of the profitability-diversification relationship provides evidence that the negative impact of revenue diversification on the profitability of banking firms that exists in the literature is mainly due to measurement and model specification issues. Failure to differentiate between interest-versus-noninterest and banking-versus-nonbanking types of revenue diversification has resulted in using measures of the first type of diversification to study the second, leading to inaccurate results. Moreover, introducing nonlinearity to the relationship between revenue diversification and profitability provides evidence that this relationship is negative only at relatively low levels of diversification but positive if the level of diversification is sufficiently high. Controlling for these measurement and model specification issues results in profitability premium, rather than discount, that is associated with higher levels of revenue diversification. The study also employs an event study methodology to measure how stock markets respond to mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in which BHCs acquire other banking and nonbanking financial targets. The cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) to acquirers and targets show that M&A that are either nondiversifying or diversifying within closely-related credit intermediation activities increase the value of merged firms. The effect of M&As that combine less-related financial activities on firm value is either negative or insignificant. This implies that market participants have better expectations of the future performance of less diversified firms in managing the risk-return trade-off. Comparing the average CARs of the preand post-GLBA eras supports this conclusion. To the memory of my parents, who were looking forward to celebrating my PhD degree but did not live long enough to see this happening. I hope earning this degree makes them happier in their heaven. To my dear wife . whose name should be on this degree’s diploma even before mine, but life is not that fair.
Oral Anti-diabetic Agents as an Alternative Treatment of Diabetes in Pregnancy

Diabetes is the commonest medical condition in pregnancy. The initial treatment of gestational and Type 2 diabetes in pregnancy is dietary and lifestyle measures. Upon failure of this, pharmacological treatment is advocated which is insulin due to its unparalleled efficacy and safety. But insulin has got some drawbacks like suboptimal patient adherence specially in developing countries. Considering this, studies are done with oral anti-diabetic agents (OAA) among which glyburide and metformin are common. The purpose of this review article is to summarize the different studies done with the OAA specially glyburide and metformin and to critically evaluate the results. Information was collected by searching pub med for related studies, abstracts and articles. Studies on glyburide show little or no transfer across the placenta while metformin cross readily. However animal studies have found no evidence to suggest that glyburide and metformin are teratogenic. In pregnancy glyburide was found to be safe and efficacious with a success rate of 80-85% and there was less incidence of maternal hypoglycemia than insulin. Some studies reported higher rate of preeclampsia, neonatal jaundice and macrosomia. Metformin was associated with reduced neonatal hypoglycemia, maternal hypoglycemia and weight gain with improved treatment satisfaction. However it was observed that failure occurred more with these two drugs in those pregnant women who were early diagnosed cases of gestational diabetes mellitus( <25 weeks), having past history of gestational diabetes mellitus, obese, elderly and with high blood sugar profile specially fasting sample. Prescription of any OAA in pregnancy should be accompanied by full information of the drug including its lack of long term safety data. With the exception of glyburide and metformin there is insufficient data to recommend treatment with any other currently available OAA during pregnancy.
Psychological contracts and independent sales contractors: an examination of the predictors of contractor-level outcomes

Abstract Over the past decade, the independent sales contractor (ISC) has emerged as both an important distribution channel and a management challenge. This study makes two contributions to this evolving field. First, it explores the interrelations of the psychological contract with sales performance, voluntary turnover and organisational advocacy of ISCs, which have hitherto been largely unexplored. Second, it examines differences between high- and low-performing sales contractors on these linkages, due to findings in the literature that a small number of sales contractors often achieve a majority of sales. Based on survey data as well as 7 years of contractor-level data related to sales performance and voluntary turnover (n = 189), results indicate that psychological contract fulfilment and perceived dependency are important determinants of subsequent sales performance, voluntary turnover and organisational advocacy, with significant differences reported between high- and low-performing ISCs. A notable finding pertinent for sales managers responsible for managing ISCs is that high-performing sales contractors are motivated by psychological contract fulfilment and a low perception of dependency, while low-performing sales contractors are more likely to act as advocates for the firm due to perceived dependency, but may concurrently engage in organisational advocacy as a means to leave the firm.
The Two Sides of Vitamin E Supplementation

Vitamin E is a lipid-soluble antioxidant that inhibits lipid peroxidation by scavenging reactive oxygen species, and it is thought to protect against the aging process. Indeed, it is one of the most popular supplements in the US. However, recent studies have revealed that vitamin E has dual effects on the aging process. We discovered that α-tocopherol, the major form of vitamin E in the body, stimulates osteoclast fusion and bone resorption as well as induces an osteoporosis-like phenotype in rodents. Clinical intervention trials have also demonstrated that supplementation with vitamin E is neutral or even harmful for preventing age-related diseases in humans. Therefore, the role of vitamin E as an ‘anti-ager' has been called into question. This review outlines the present understanding of the role of vitamin E in age-related disease prevention.
Twelve-year experience of radioactive iodine uptake in hyperthyroid patients.

To the Editor. — Recent communications inThe Journal, an article by Wong and Schultz (238:1741, 1977) and a letter by Sostre (239:1035, 1978), have summarized data suggesting that the radioactive iodine uptake (RAIU) in normal persons declined during the 20 years from 1957 to 1977. Hooper and Caplan (238:411, 1977) indicate that increased dietary iodine content may be the cause of decreasing RAIU values in hyperthyroid patients as well as in normal persons. They found a notable change in hyperthyroid patients with toxic nodular goiter. However, they did not find an appreciable change in the RAIU values for patients with Graves' disease between 1970 and 1976. Between 1965 and 1977 we treated 466 patients for hyperthyroidism using radioactive iodine. During these years we found that the 24-hour RAIU values for hyperthyroid patients remained essentially unchanged, between 45% and 55% (Figure), within the usually accepted hyperthyroid range. Of these 466 patients,
Application of Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics to Antimicrobial Therapy of Community-Acquired Respiratory Tract Infections

To achieve bacteriologic and clinical success, sufficient concentrations of antimicrobial at the site of infection must be maintained for an adequate period of time. These dynamics are determined by combining drug pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic (PK/PD) data with minimum inhibitory concentrations. Bacteriologically confirmed failures have been reported in otitis media and, with a lesser degree of evidence, in pneumococcal pneumonia with a variety of agents that include β-lactams, macrolides and fluoroquinolones. These failures have been shown to be due to infection by resistant pathogens or suboptimal therapy. However, no clinical failure has been reported during therapy for bacteremic pneumococcal pneumonia with adequate doses of β-lactams. The failures reported with macrolides or fluoroquinolones have been due to either preexisting resistance to these agents that cannot be overcome by increasing the dose of the antimicrobial or, more rarely, the emergence of resistance during therapy. In this review, we offer an overview of the most important attributes of the main antimicrobials that are currently used in the treatment of community-acquired respiratory tract infections from a PK/PD perspective.
MiR-27a regulates Wnt/beta-catenin signaling through targeting SFRP1 in glioma

Glioma is one of the most common intracranial tumors, and the prognosis is poor, although more and more treatments are employed. Wnt/beta-catenin signaling has been reported to be associated with glioma. SFRP1 acts as an antagonist and inhibits Wnt signaling by binding to Wnt molecules. In the present study, we aimed to investigate miRNA-27a as an antineoplastic factor that inhibits the Wnt/beta-catenin pathway by binding to the SFRP1 3′-UTR in glioma in vitro. We first showed that the expression of miR-27a was elevated in both glioma samples and cell lines. Furthermore, downregulation of miR-27a induced growth inhibition, cycle arrest, and apoptosis, and suppressed invasion/migration in glioma cell lines. Quantitative real-time PCR, western blot, and luciferase assay analysis showed that SFRP1 is a direct target of miR-27a. Overexpression of SFRP1 inhibited the malignancy of glioma cell lines. Our investigation showed that downregulation of miR-27a suppressed beta-catenin/TCF-4 transcription activity by targeting SFRP1. Our findings identify a role for miR-27a in glioma cell viability, cycle, apoptosis, and invasion/migration after activation of Wnt/beta-catenin signaling through SFRP1.
Cholesteryl ester transfer protein levels and gene deficiency in Chinese patients with cardio-cerebrovascular diseases.

OBJECTIVE To detect cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) levels, frequencies of CETP D442G and I 14A mutations and characteristics of abnormal lipids in patients with cardio-cerebro vascular diseases. METHODS Ninety-four myocardial infarction (MI) patients, 110 stroke patients and 335 healthy controls were selected. The CETP concentration was determined using ELISA. The CETP activity was measured using a substrate of (14)C-radiolabeled discoidal bilayer particles. The CETP gene mutations were detected by PCR-RFLP. RESULTS The CETP concentrations in the MI and stroke group, were higher than those in the controls. The gene mutation frequencies of D442G in the MI, stroke and control group were 3.5%, 3.6% and 5%, respectively, and the frequencies of I 14A were 1.05%, 0.91% and 1%, respectively. One case of D442G homozygote was detected in the healthy group. The frequency of two CETP gene mutations showed no significant difference among the patients and controls. The CETP concentration and activity in subjects with CETP mutations were one-third of those in the control group. The level of HDL-C, apo-A1 increased in the mutation subjects, while the TG level decreased. CONCLUSIONS The CETP level increased significantly in patients with cardio-cerebrovascular diseases. The carriers of CETP deficiency had CETP and lipid abnormalities.
A Sufficient Condition for a Graph to be the Core of a Class 2 Graph

The core of a graph G is the subgraph GΔ induced by the vertices of maximum degree. We define the deleted core D(G) of G. We extend an earlier sufficient condition due to Hoffman [7] for a graph H to be the core of a Class 2 graph, and thereby provide a stronger sufficient condition. The new sufficient condition is in terms of D(H). We show that in some circumstances our condition is necessary; but it is not necessary in general.
Integrated customer relationship management for service activities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to suggest an integrated framework for designing, implementing and evaluating a customer relationship marketing (CRM) system in service companies, based on a gap analysis.Design/methodology/approach – The paper summarizes key findings of previous research on CRM internal (organizational) success/failure factors, adds a customer perspective on CRM expectations and perceptions, and links these internal and external factors using a systemic gap approach.Findings – The paper finds that viewing a relationship as a value and as a quality driver should lead managers to consider expectations as a mean to design appropriate interaction flows with customers. Also, relationship expectations from customers' point of view could be used as a segmentation variable to identify customer relationship profiles and address them with specific means. Finally, the integrated perspective underlines the importance of coordination and coherence among all organizational, technological and huma.
Design and Analysis of Nonuniformly Shaped Heaters for Improved MEMS-Based Electrothermal Displacement Sensing

Conventional heaters used in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) electrothermal displacement sensors typically feature a uniform cross section, which results in a nonuniform temperature profile. In this paper, electrothermal sensors with a shaped beam profile are introduced, with simulation results showing that a much flatter temperature distribution is achieved across the length of the heater. The proposed sensor design is implemented as the displacement sensor for a MEMS nanopositioner together with a more conventional electrothermal sensor design for comparative purposes. Experimental testing indicates that the shaped profile significantly improves upon the conventional sensor design in a number of areas, including sensitivity, linearity, and noise performance.
Resistive Switching in $\hbox{HfO}_{2}$ Probed by a Metal–Insulator–Semiconductor Bipolar Transistor

Resistive switching in thin HfO2 films is studied using a metal-insulator-semiconductor bipolar transistor structure. Using this structure, electron injection into the semiconductor valence band can be distinguished from injection into the conduction band. In addition, the p-n junction serves as a sensitive detector of damage induced by the switching effect. The implications of the obtained experimental results on the validity of various conduction mechanisms through the insulator are discussed.
Worldwide prevalence and risk factors for myopia

Citation information: Pan C‐W, Ramamurthy D & Saw S‐M. Worldwide prevalence and risk factors for myopia. Ophthalmic Physiol Opt 2012, 32, 3‐16. doi: 10.1111/j.1475‐1313.2011. 00884.x
Prevalence of salivary Streptococcus mutans serotype k in children undergoing congenital heart surgery.

OBJECTIVE The prevalence of Streptococcus mutans serotype k, which was speculated that might be associated with the development of cardiovascular diseases, has been reported in adult cardiovascular surgery patients. There is no information about presence of serotype k in children with cardiac disease. The aim of this study was to determine the salivary prevalence of S. mutans serotype k in children with congenital heart disease. STUDY DESIGN Salivary samples of 25 patients undergoing elective surgery for congenital heart defects with cardiopulmonary bypass and an age and gender matched control group of 25 healthy children were enrolled in the study. Species-specific 16SrRNA gene sequences were used for S. mutans and serotype-specific rgpF gene sequences were used for S. mutans serotype k determination in stimulated saliva samples. RESULTS S. mutans was detected in 19 (76%) of the study and 15 (60%) of the control children. The difference was not shown to be statistically significant. Serotype k was determined from 3 (12%) of the study group, while it was not determined from the samples of the control group. CONCLUSIONS Our results indicate that those children with congenital heart disease may possess S. mutans serotype k in oral cavity at a higher frequency as similar with the adult cardiac surgery patients.
Surfactant Replacement Therapy in Developing Countries

Background: Since the first successful report of surfactant replacement therapy (SRT) in infants with respiratory distress syndrome (RDS), numerous randomized clinical trials have shown that SRT reduces mortality and morbidity in RDS. Surfactant is now a standard therapy for RDS. However, the use of SRT in the developing world has been extremely slow. Objective: The objective of this paper is to review the published information regarding the usage and barriers encountered in the use of SRT in developing countries. Methods: We reviewed the available literature and also gathered information from countries with a high burden of prematurity and high infant mortality rate regarding replacement therapy and the barriers to use of SRT. Results: We reviewed the available literature and found that developing countries bear a high burden of prematurity and RDS that contribute to high neonatal and infant mortality rates. Based on the effectiveness of SRT in RDS, surfactant preparations were included in the Essential Drug List of WHO in 2008. However, the use of SRT in developing countries is still limited because of (1) high cost, (2) lack of skilled personnel to administer SRT, and (3) lack of support systems after the SRT. The cost of SRT may exceed the per-capita GNP (300–500 USD) in some countries. Data from India and South Africa suggests that SRT is limited to rescue therapy in babies with potential for better survival, usually >28 weeks’ gestation. Recent studies show that infants with RDS respond well to initial continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) followed by SRT for those who do not respond. Conclusions: In developing countries, CPAP may be used as the primary mode of management of RDS. SRT may be reserved for non-responders to CPAP. Alternate simpler methods of delivery of surfactant (aerosol technique) are also being explored. There is a need for further studies to develop and assess efficient and less expensive methods of application of CPAP and SRT in developing countries.
Infliximab and etanercept in the treatment of chronic uveitis associated with refractory juvenile idiopathic arthritis

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of anti-tumour necrosis factor (anti-TNF) treatment in juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA)-associated uveitis. Methods: 24 patients with uveitis taking etanercept and 21 taking infliximab were studied. The endpoint ophthalmological evaluation was at 24 months or at the termination of the first biological agent. The ocular inflammatory activity was graded on the basis of the number of anterior chamber cells. Results: Of the 45 patients, uveitis improved in 14 (31%), no change was observed in 14 (31%) and the activity of uveitis increased in 17 (38%). Inflammatory activity improved more frequently (p = 0.047) in the patients taking infliximab than in those taking etanercept. The number of uveitis flares/year was higher (p = 0.015) in the patients taking etanercept (mean 1.4, range 0–3.2) than in those taking infliximab (mean 0.7, range 0–2). Uveitis developed for the first time while taking anti-TNF treatment in five patients—4 taking etanercept (2.2/100 patient-years) and 1 taking infliximab (1.1/100 patient-years). Conclusions: During anti-TNF treatment, the ophthalmological condition improved in one-third of the patients with uveitis. In chronic anterior uveitis, associated with refractory JIA, infliximab may be more effective than etanercept.
Salt Sensitivity Is Associated With an Increased Mortality in Both Normal and Hypertensive Humans

While a variety of studies have demonstrated the heterogeneity of the blood pressure response to salt loading and depletion, none has examined the relationship of these responses to mortality. We conducted a follow‐up study of 430 normal and 278 hypertensive subjects studied as long ago as 28 years by techniques to assess their blood pressure responses to salt and volume expansion and depletion (salt sensitivity). We found that 123 (21 %) of our study subjects had died in the interval since the initial study. The following measures were found to be significantly associated with the risk for death: blood pressure (systolic, diastolic, mean arterial, and pulse pressures), hypertension, age, salt sensitivity, baseline renin levels (inverse), and body mass index (but not body weight). Normotensive, saltsensitive subjects had a survival that was no different than that of hypertensive subjects. Only initially normotensive, salt‐resistant individuals had improved survival. Studies are continuing in order to elucidate the mechanisms by which salt sensitivity, even in normotensive subjects, may lead to reduced survival.