Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Severe Head Injury Hastens Age of Onset of Alzheimer's Disease

Head trauma has been found with greater frequency in the histories of Alzheimer patients than age‐matched controls in some studies, but not in others. We hypothesized that events that accelerate neuron loss, such as significant head trauma, hasten the onset of symptoms of Alzheimer's disease in persons vulnerable to the disorder. Retrospective data on 148 probable Alzheimer patients and 33 demented controls were examined. Alzheimer patients with severe head injury before the age of 65 showed onset of symptoms at an earlier age than Alzheimer patients without head trauma.
Banking Regulation and Market Making

We present a model of market makers subject to recent banking regulations: liquidity and capital constraints in the style of Basel III and a position limit in the style of the Volcker Rule. Regulation causes market makers to reduce their intermediation by refusing principal positions. However, it can improve the bid-ask spread because it induces new market makers to enter. Since market makers intermediate less, asset prices exhibit a liquidity premium. Costs of regulation can be assessed by measuring principal positions and asset prices but not by measuring bid-ask spreads.
Why Consumers Use Mobile Commerce? - International Comparative Study of M-Commerce Model

Development of information and communication technology is changing commerce environment and consumer purchasing behavior has also been changed. Globalization is becoming increasingly prevalent in the world today and many factors such as culture, politics, and economics may influence the applicability of management theories. Concurrently, corporate managers are faced with the challenge of offering usable and useful applications to the local users. Besides, many scholars strongly support that the criteria for M-Commerce adoption in developing countries are different from that of developed countries, due to cultural, security, social, political, economic, and technological aspects. This research tried to investigate the differences on the adoption of mobile commerce between developed and developing countries. In this study, the motivation for studying advanced mobile phone services adoption in the South Korea and Viet Nam is presented. Second, M-Commerce adoption model is introduced as a starting point for the research model. We then integrate price, personal innovativeness, quality dimension and perceived of playfulness into our model. Next, we describe our method and report the results of our analysis. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results from both the South Korea and Viet Nam with implications.
Relationship between Options Trading Volume and Company Value: Evidence from India

Most of the empirical literature on the informational role of options markets and the stock price response is based on a simple dichotomy of companies with listed options versus companies without listed options with an implicit assumption that the benefits of options trading are homogenous across companies with listed options. However, when options trading volume is low, options listing may hardly have any impact on the underlying stock price and the company value in turn. This study was therefore taken up to investigate relationship between options trading volume and the valuation of underlying company. Using regression analysis between Tobin’s q, which captures company value and options trading volume, along with other control variables that could impinge upon company valuation, we find conclusive evidence that company valuation is significantly related to options trading volume. Therefore, investors and traders must remember that options listing must be supported by sufficient liquidity to offer any insights to future price trends.
A Stereotactic Method of Anatomical Localization for Positron Emission Tomography

Surgicalxtant methods for anatomical localization within a physiological image are inadequate for precise regional correlations between anatomy and physiology. We have developed a method for determining the location of any region of interest within a positron emission tomographic (PET) image by transformation of the tomographic location coordinates into coordinates within a stereotactic atlas of the human brain. The specific anatomical assumptions of this approach were identified and validated within groups of normal subjects by means of measurements made from lateral skull radiographs and nuclear magnetic resonance proton images. A high degree of accuracy and reproducibility was demonstrated when this technique was applied to groups of normal subjects by determining the anatomical location of two physiologically defined PET areas: the cavernous sinus and visually responsive cortex. This method is simple to implement and highly objective. Generalization of the localization procedure for use with structural tomography is readily accomplished.
Neuroleptic medications inhibit complex I of the electron transport chain

reported a patient with positive human T-lymphotrophic virus type I (HTLV-I) antibodies whose symptoms, similar to those of Shy-Drager syndrome, improved with corticosteroid therapy. They suggested that HTLV-I infection is related to Shy-Drager syndromelike neurological disorders. In fact, tremor has been reported in 27% and mild cerebellar ataxia in 5% of patients with usual HTLV-I-associated myelopathy (HAM), in addition to cardinal features of HAM; i
No need for outpatient physiotherapy following total knee arthroplastyA randomized trial of 120 patients

BACKGROUND We have not found any reports on the effect of physiotherapy after knee replacement. PATIENTS AND METHODS In a prospective randomized controlled trial, we randomized two groups to receive or not receive outpatient physiotherapy following total knee arthroplasty. 120 patients were recruited over 2 years, each followed up for 1 year. Inclusion criteria were age between 55-90 years, less than 40 degrees of fixed flexion contracture and the ability to walk at least 10 meters unaided preoperatively with monoarticular arthrosis. RESULTS We found no statistically significant benefit of outpatient physiotherapy at any of the three times measured. After adjusting for baseline differences between the two treatment groups, the mean difference in knee flexion 1 year postoperatively was only 2.9 degrees. This mean difference is of no clinical significance. INTERPRETATION We concluded that in a preselected group of patients following primary total knee arthroplasty, inpatient physiotherapy with good instructions and a well-structured home exercise regime can dispense with the need for outpatient physiotherapy.
Perception of Modern Processing Technology by Shea Butter Processors in Kwara State, Nigeria

Abstract The study examined the perception of Shea butter processors to modern processing technology in Kwara State. Multi stage sampling procedure was used to select 120 respondents. Data was collected using interview schedule and analysed with both descriptive and inferential statistics. Results revealed that 88.3% of the respondents were females between 40-50 years of age (47.0%) and have low level of education (83.1%). The household size of the respondents was 5-8 members (65.9%) and 1-10 years of experience (52.8%). Respondents’ level of awareness of modern processing technology was high (55.0%), pre-cleaner (98.3%) and storage tank (94.2%) being higher. The majority (62.5%) had favourable perception to modern processing technology, sixty per cent strongly agreed and 61.0% agreed that modern processing technology reduced drudgery and increase profit respectively. There was significant relationship (r= 0.182, p=0.046) between respondent’s level of awareness and their perception. Information should be disseminated to the processors in local languages on the benefits and how to use modern processing technology.
Competition Intensity, Uncertainty Environmental on the use of Information Technology and its Impact on Business Performance Small and Medium Enterprises

In the business world, the information technology revolution led to tremendous changes in competition, production, marketing and human resource management. The use of information technology is a vital component of business performance (BP). By this study wanted to know of competition intensity (CI), uncertainty environment (UE) of business and the use of information technology and its impact on BP. The sample number in this study are 130 respondences of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) printing management in East Java, using purposive sampling technique. Through testing with analysis of structural equation modeling the results of this study found that: First, CI impact significant positive on the information technology investment (IIT). But CI impact significant negative BP SMEs. Second, UE of business impact significant positive on the BP of SMEs and IIT. Third, IIT impact significant positive on the BP of SMEs.
Micro Credit and Rural Women Entrepreneurship Development in Bangladesh: A Multivariate Model

Micro credit programs have positive socioeconomic impact on rural women borrowers of Bangladesh. But it is also opined by the different corners that the micro credit programs do not help the borrowers to develop entrepreneurial capabilities except surviving. Thus, this paper aims at identifying the factors related to the development of entrepreneurship among the rural women through micro credit programs of the micro credit providers. A multivariate analysis technique such as, Factor Analysis was conducted to identify the factors related to entrepreneurship development. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to identify the relationship between micro credit program and the development of rural women entrepreneurship in Bangladesh. Results show that the financial management skills are the most important factor that has significant relationship with the development of rural women entrepreneurship. Results also show that the group identities of the women borrowers have significant relationship with the rural entrepreneurship development in Bangladesh. Borrowers experience from the parents’ families and the limitation of option also lead to the development of entrepreneurship among the rural women borrowers of Bangladesh.
The National Library of Singapore: creating a sense of community

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of the National Library of Singapore in the life of Singaporeans. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses historical research. McMillan and Chavis’ theory of sense of community is adopted as the analytical framework to delineate the role of the National Library of Singapore. Findings – The paper finds that the National Library of Singapore plays an important role in fostering a sense of community among Singaporeans. The transformation of the library to a truly public institution in 1950s effectively enlarged its boundaries. Upon joining the community of the library, local Singaporeans underwent a bidirectional process of influencing and being influenced. The library made strenuous efforts to meet the needs of Singaporeans in myriad ways, resulting in reinforcement of the sense of community among Singaporeans. A shared emotional connection in the community was engendered as a result of the frequent contact and high-quality interaction. Ori.
Variance Risk Premia , Asset Predictability Puzzles , and Macroeconomic Uncertainty

We investigate the hypothesis that macroeconomic fluctuations are primitively the results of many microeconomic shocks, and show that it has significant explanatory power for the evolution of macroeconomic volatility. We define “fundamental” volatility as the volatility that would arise from an economy made entirely of idiosyncratic microeconomic shocks, occurring primitively at the level of sectors or firms. In its empirical construction, motivated by a simple model, the sales share of different sectors vary over time (in a way we directly measure), while the volatility of those sectors remains constant. We find that fundamental volatility accounts for the swings in macroeconomic volatility in the US and the other major world economies in the past half century. It accounts for the “great moderation” and its undoing. Controlling for our measure of fundamental volatility, there is no break in output volatility. The initial great moderation is due to a decreasing share of manufacturing between 1975 and 1985. The recent rise of macroeconomic volatility is due to the increase of the size of the financial sector. We provide a model to think quantitatively about the large comovement generated by idiosyncratic shocks. As the origin of aggregate shocks can be traced to identifiable microeconomic shocks, we may better understand the origins of aggregate fluctuations.
The Effect of Relational Capabilities and Managerial Capabilities on Performance Outcome: A Comparison between Architecture Firms and Real Estate Development Companies

Building projects are complex, unique and involve many stakeholders, such as contractors, architects, engineers, investors and developers. Creating and maintaining networks to partners and clients is of crucial importance for a successful project completion and for the competitive advantage of project-based organizations. The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of coordinative capabilities, specifically relational capabilities (RC) and managerial capabilities (MC) for the strategic performance of real estate development companies and architecture firms. It is hypothesized that RC and MC, which are embedded in the organization itself and developed through projects and individual capabilities, influence the strategic performance of architects and real estate developers, and thus lead to competitive advantage and higher firm performance of these companies. The research framework is empirically evaluated by using data from 97 real estate development companies and 79 architecture firms from Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. The hypotheses are tested by applying a stepwise regression analysis. Further on, the findings for these two types of professional service firms are compared and their implication discussed. Our results indicate that under higher environmental uncertainty, relational capabilities are more important for the performance of architecture firms and managerial capabilities are more important for the performance of real estate companies.
Optimization in multi‐scale segmentation of high‐resolution satellite images for artificial feature recognition

Multi‐resolution segmentation, as one of the most popular approaches in object‐oriented image segmentation, has been greatly enabled by the advent of the commercial software, eCognition. However, the application of multi‐resolution segmentation still poses problems, especially in its operational aspects. This paper addresses the issue of optimization of the algorithm‐associated parameters in multi‐resolution segmentation. A framework starting with the definition of meaningful objects is proposed to find optimal segmentations for a given feature type. The proposed framework was tested to segment three exemplary artificial feature types (sports fields, roads, and residential buildings) in IKONOS multi‐spectral images, based on a sampling scheme of all the parameters required by the algorithm. Results show that the feature‐type‐oriented segmentation evaluation provides an insight to the decision‐making process in choosing appropriate parameters towards a high‐quality segmentation. By adopting these feature‐type‐based optimal parameters, multi‐resolution segmentation is able to produce objects of desired form to represent artificial features.
Pain, Analgesic Use, and Morbidity in Appendectomy Patients

Pain has immunosuppressive effects among the critically and chronically ill, and opioids may immunomodulate pain’s deleterious effects. However, little is known about the relations between acute pain, acute illness, and morbidity among previously healthy surgical patients. This study retrospectively examined these relations in appendectomy patients (N = 61). Eleven patients (18%) had morbidity, with atelectasis (11.5%) the most frequent complication. There were no differences between those patients with and without morbidity and pain intensity, method of opioid administration, and total opioid dose. Patients who received nonopioid analgesics received fewer opioids, less preemptive analgesia, and had less morbidity, whereas patients whose appendixes perforated received higher opioid doses and received more preemptive analgesia. Although the relations between acute pain, opioid use, and morbidity among previously healthy surgical patients are unclear, findings infer that clinical practice does not follow guidelines advocated by analgesic experts.
An Upstream Truncation of the furA-katG Operon Confers High-Level Isoniazid Resistance in a Mycobacterium tuberculosis Clinical Isolate with No Known Resistance-Associated Mutations

ABSTRACT Although the major causes of isoniazid (INH) resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis are confined to structural mutations in katG and promoter mutations in the mabA-inhA operon, a significant proportion of INH-resistant strains have unknown resistance mechanisms. Recently, we identified a high-level INH-resistant M. tuberculosis clinical isolate, GB005, with no known resistance-associated mutations. A comprehensive study was performed to investigate the molecular basis of drug resistance in this strain. Although no mutations were found throughout the katG and furA-katG intergenic region, the katG expression and the catalase activity were greatly diminished compared to those in H37Rv (P < 0.01). Northern blotting revealed that the katG transcript from the isolate was smaller than that of H37Rv. Sequencing analysis of furA and upstream genes discovered a 7.2-kb truncation extended from the 96th base preceding the initiation codon of katG. Complementation of the M. tuberculosis Δ(furA-katG) strain with katG and different portions of the truncated region identified a 134-bp upstream fragment of furA that was essential for full catalase activity and INH susceptibility in M. tuberculosis. The promoter activity of this fragment was also shown to be stronger than that of the furA-katG intergenic region (P < 0.01). Collectively, these findings demonstrate that deletion of the 134-bp furA upstream fragment is responsible for the reduction in katG expression, resulting in INH resistance in GB005. To our knowledge, this is the first report showing that deletion of the upstream region preceding the furA-katG operon causes high-level INH resistance in a clinical isolate of M. tuberculosis.
Harnessing CEO Overcondence

Prior literature posits that while some CEO overcondence may benet shareholders, high levels of overcondence do not. We investigate whether advice from more diverse sources and improvements in governance can help to mitigate the adverse eects of CEO overcondence on rm value. We use the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act as a natural experiment to examine whether fresh perspectives, from having additional independent directors inside the boardroom, and other useful innovations in governance practices, tends to improve decision-making abilities of overcondent CEOs. We conduct tests using options and press-based proxies for CEO overcondence. Results are strongly supportive: post-SOX, overcondent CEOs reduce investment, improve performance and market value, reduce risk-exposure, increase dividends and substantially improve long-term performance following acquisitions. Importantly, these SOX-related benets are concentrated in the rms that were SOX non-compliant prior to its passage.
Modeling, Identification and Compensation of Complex Hysteretic Nonlinearities: A Modified Prandtl - Ishlinskii Approach

Undesired complex hysteretic nonlinearities are present to varying degree in virtually all smart material based sensors and actuators provided that they are driven with sufficiently high amplitudes. This necessitates the development of purely phenomenological models which characterize these nonlinearities in a way which is sufficiently accurate, robust, amenable to control design for nonlinearity compensation and efficient enough for use in real-time applications. To fulfill these demanding requirements, the present paper describes a new compensator design method for invertible complex hysteretic nonlinearities which is based on the so-called modified Prandtl-Ishlinskii hysteresis operator. The parameter identification of this model can be formulated as a quadratic optimization problem which produces the best L 2 2 -norm approximation for the measured input-output data of the real hysteretic nonlinearity. Special linear inequality and equality constraints for the parameters guarantee the unique solvability of the identification problem and the invertibility of the identified model. This leads to a robustness of the identification procedure against unknown measurement errors, unknown model errors and unknown model orders. The corresponding compensator can be directly calculated and thus efficiently implemented from the model by analytical transformation laws. Finally, the compensator design method is used to generate an inverse feedforward controller for a magnetostrictive actuator. In comparision to the conventional controlled magnetostrictive actuator the nonlinearity error of the inverse controlled magnetostrictive actuator is lowered from about 50% to about 3%.
Neurological Complications in Children with Protein C Deficiency

Four children with a cerebrovascular occlusive accident and protein C deficiency are described. Two patients presented with an acute hemiplegia, the others suffered from a transient ischemic attack and a progressive hydrocephalus as the result of sinus thrombosis. In all cases protein C deficiency, Type 1, was diagnosed. Other causes of cerebrovascular disease were excluded. Although venous thrombosis has been extensively reported in protein C deficiency, these cases indicate that protein C deficiency is also related to arterial thrombosis. In evaluating children with cerebrovascular accidents, protein C deficiency should also be considered.
The Influence Of Agency Cost On Dividend Payout Of Firms Listed At The Nairobi Stock Exchange

Dividend policy has long been an issue of interest in the financial literature. To date, a number of studies have been published on agency costs and dividend policy but most of them are on developed markets. It is well known that the emerging markets are quite different from developed markets in most respects. So, the existing published evidence is of limited relevance in identifying the influence of agency costs on dividend policy in an emerging market. The major objective of this paper is to identify the influence of agency costs on dividend policy in an emerging market. Firms listed in the Nairobi Stock Exchange for the period 1998-2002 arc considered as the sample of the study. Ordinary least square regression model was employed to identify the influence of agency costs on dividend policy in this study. I’he results confirm that there is indeed a positive correlation between the dependent variable and the independent variables. The free cash flow, the collaterizable assets and the dispersion of ownership all positively affect dividend policy. Collaterizable assets were found to be more significant in the regression while dispersion of ownership, and free cash flow were found to be less significant. All of these coefficients are in the predicted direction and quite consistent with Rozeffs (1982) and all other previous empirical evidence. 'ITic results also support Jensen’s (1986) free cash flow hypothesis.