Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Serum levels of vitamin D metabolites in the elderly.

The serum concentrations of 25-dihydroxyvitamin D, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, 24,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, vitamin D-binding protein, PTH and calcitonin were measured in three groups of elderly Norwegian subjects (age 70-96 years): active elderly living at home, warded geriatric patients not supplemented with vitamin D, and warded geriatric patients supplemented with a daily dose of 400 IU vitamin D2. The results were compared with the concentrations of vitamin D metabolites found in a group of young and middle-aged adults (age 22-59 years). Decreased serum concentrations of 25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 were found in all groups of elderly compared with younger adults. Active elderly living at home had higher concentrations of 25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 than geriatric ward patients. Supplementation of geriatric ward patients with 400 IU vitamin D2 resulted in an increase in the median serum 25-dihydroxyvitamin D concentration by about 30 nmol/l. Decreased median concentration of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D was found in geriatric ward patients not supplemented with vitamin D, indicating that this group is at risk of vitamin D deficiency. The active elderly living at home and the warded geriatric patients receiving vitamin D supplementation had normal median concentrations of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, indicating that nephrogenous synthesis of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D is not generally impaired in the elderly, and that a moderate vitamin D supplementation may correct low 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D levels, owing to vitamin D deficiency. However, the serum concentrations of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D showed great individual variations. No significant differences were observed for vitamin D-binding protein, 'free-1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, or PTH between the groups. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Board Composition and the Value of New Zealand Companies

This study examines the relationship between board composition and firm value, and the extent to which this relationship may be affected by a company’s investment opportunity set. There is little research that examines this issue, particularly for the New Zealand market. Of the research that exists, and generally for the research that examines how board composition affects firm performance, the findings have been mixed. Using a randomly chosen sample, which improves the external validity of results from prior studies, we find that board composition of high growth option firms is positively related to firm value, and this relationship is maintained when more refined measures that proxy the characteristics of outside directors (such as tenure of outside directors, the level of outside director equity ownership, the number of other board positions held by outside directors, and the total proportion of non‐executive directors, including grey directors) are recognised.
INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND INDUSTRY- SPECIFIC SKILL PREMIUM: Evidence from matched employer-employee data in Swedish manufacturing

This paper examines how international trade has affected industry-specific skill premiums in the Swedish manufacturing, applying matched employer-employee data for the period 1996 to 2000. We use detailed individual and job characteristics to estimate industry-specific and time-varying skill premiums. The impact of international trade on skill premiums is investigated, controlling for effects of domestic competition and technical progress. The empirical results suggest that industry-specific skill premiums, in addition to industry affiliation indeed provide another channel, through which international trade affects the wage distribution between skilled and unskilled workers. The impact of trade on skill premiums can be both positive and negative, depending on the nature of competition, but not necessarily on the distinction between import competing and export competitive industries .
Exact Arbitrage Pricing and the Minimum-Variance Frontier

This paper examines the relationship between the Arbitrage Pricing Theory and mean-variance analysis. It derives conditi ons on the factor risk premia vector equivalent to the existence of a frontier portfolio with all positive portfolio weights. The paper al so gives a sufficient condition under which the existence of a positi ve minimum-variance portfolio of all assets in an economy implies the existence of such a portfolio on a subset. If this condition holds, rejection of the hypothesis of the existence of a positive minimum-va riance portfolio on the subset implies rejection on the whole set. Copyright 1988 by American Finance Association.
COLOR II. A randomized clinical trial comparing laparoscopic and open surgery for rectal cancer.

INTRODUCTION Laparoscopic resection of rectal cancer has been proven efficacious but morbidity and oncological outcome need to be investigated in a randomized clinical trial. TRIAL DESIGN Non-inferiority randomized clinical trial. METHODS The COLOR II trial is an ongoing international randomized clinical trial. Currently 27 hospitals from Europe, South Korea and Canada are including patients. The primary endpoint is loco-regional recurrence rate three years post-operatively. Secondary endpoints cover quality of life, overall and disease free survival, post-operative morbidity and health economy analysis. RESULTS By July 2008, 27 hospitals from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Denmark, South Korea and Canada had included 739 patients. The intra-operative conversion rate in the laparoscopic group was 17%. Distribution of age, location of the tumor and radiotherapy were equal in both treatment groups. Most tumors are located in the mid-rectum (41%). CONCLUSION Laparoscopic surgery in the treatment of rectal cancer is feasible. The results and safety of laparoscopic surgery in the treatment of rectal cancer remain unknown, but are subject of interim analysis within the COLOR II trial. Completion of inclusion is expected by the end of 2009. TRIAL REGISTRATION Clinicaltrials.gov, identifier: NCT00297791 (www.clinicaltrials.gov).
The Capitalization of School Quality into House Values: A Review

This paper provides a comprehensive review of empirical studies on the capitalization of school quality into house values that have appeared since 1999. We explore their methodological innovations and capitalization results. Most studies find significant capitalization especially for educational outputs, although the magnitudes are smaller for studies with fixed-effects estimation strategies. These studies find that house values rise by below 4% for a one-standard deviation increase in student test scores. Although major conceptual and estimation challenges remain, much progress has been made on this topic.
TEMPORAL PRICE BEHAVIOR IN COMMODITY FUTURES MARKETS

THE BEHAVIOR OF COMMODITY MARKETS has been a subject of extended controversy among economists. Much of this controversy revolves around the underlying behavior of futures prices over time. A number of researchers have concluded that there are no systematic patterns to futures price behavior while others maintain that while there may be a priori reasons justifying random behavior, the application of certain mechanical filter rules often leads to substantial profits which is indicative of nonrandom behavior. It is likely that professional attention in commodity markets will increase in the future given their current newsworthiness1 along with their similarity to bond markets. Recent contributions by R. Roll [23] and T. J. Sargent [25] emphasize this latter point. In fact, many of the specific theories of commodity price behavior and term structure phenomena between interest rates can be seen as special cases of a more general model of an "efficient" capital market. This model has also been suggested as a rationalization of the Fisherian relationship between interest rates and price changes [22]. Studies dealing with the underlying mechanism of futures price behavior include, inter alia: Cargill and Rausser [5, 6], Gray [10, 11], Hardy [12], Houthakker [13], Kendall [15], Keynes [16], Labys and Granger [17], Larson [18], Leuthold [19], Mandelbrot [20], Samuelson [24], Smidt [27], Stevenson and Bear [28], and Working [31, 32, 33]. While this list is in no way exhaustive, it does represent the broad range of studies on commodity markets. Much of the above work on commodity markets can be classified in one of three areas. First, numerous attempts [5, 6, 15, 17, 18, 19, 27, 28] have been made to test the so-called "random walk" model by statistical
The Sokoto Blind Beggars: Causes of Blindness and Barriers to Rehabilitation Services

Purpose: To determine the causes of blindness and the barriers to accessing rehabilitation services (RS) among blind street beggars (bsb) in Sokoto, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional survey of 202 bsb (VA < 3/60) using interviewer administered questionnaire. The causes of blindness were diagnosed by clinical ophthalmic examination. Results: There were 107 (53%) males and 95 (47%) females with a mean age of 49 years (SD 12.2). Most bsb 191 (94.6%) had non-formal education. Of 190 (94.1%) irreversibly bsb, 180/190 (94.7%) had no light perception (NPL) bilaterally. The major causes of blindness were non-trachomatous corneal opacity (60.8%) and trachoma corneal opacity (12.8%). There were 166 (82%) blind from avoidable causes and 190 (94.1%) were irreversibly blind with 76.1% due to avoidable causes. The available sub-standard RS were educational, vocational and financial support. The barriers to RS in the past included non-availability 151 (87.8%), inability to afford 2 (1.2%), unfelt need 4 (2.3%), family refusal 1 (0.6), ignorance 6 (3.5%) and being not linked 8 (4.7%). The barriers to RS during the study period included inability of 72 subjects (35.6%) to access RS and 59 (81.9%) were due to lack of linkage to the existing services. Conclusion: Corneal opacification was the major cause of blindness among bsb. The main challenges to RS include the inadequate services available, societal and users factors. Renewed efforts are warranted toward the prevention of avoidable causes of blindness especially corneal opacities. The quality of life of the blind street beggar should be improved through available, accessible and affordable well-maintained and sustained rehabilitation services.
‘You have to be well spoken’: students’ views on employability within the graduate labour market

This study reports upon the perceptions of a sample of Education Studies undergraduates of their employability within three jobs: teaching, accountancy and marketing/sales management. The concept of employability is framed around two themes analysed through a Bernsteinian conceptual analysis: transferable utility of an Education Studies degree for employment in the jobs and importance of class and gender to employment in the jobs. The question of how undergraduates, who would traditionally anticipate working in teaching-related employment, perceive jobs within different occupational areas has acquired particular interest following ongoing public sector cuts in the UK with consequent implications for employment within teaching. In focus group interviews students identified class and gender barriers in relation to all three jobs, thus demonstrating a wider sensitivity to the classed and gendered nature of the graduate labour market. While the students did not, generally, see either of the two business/finance jobs as completely closed to them in terms of class and gender-related constraints, there was a clear perception that their degree did not provide them with the necessary skills for employment within these jobs. This represents a rejection of dominant discourses regarding transferable graduate skills and challenges assumptions of graduate occupational mobility.
Transmissible Gastroenteritis Coronavirus Packaging Signal Is Located at the 5′ End of the Virus Genome

ABSTRACT To locate the transmissible gastroenteritis coronavirus (TGEV) packaging signal, the incorporation of TGEV subgenomic mRNAs (sgmRNAs) into virions was first addressed. TGEV virions were purified by three different techniques, including an immunopurification using an M protein-specific monoclonal antibody. Detection of sgmRNAs in virions by specific reverse transcription-PCRs (RT-PCRs) was related to the purity of virus preparations. Interestingly, virus mRNAs were detected in partially purified virus but not in virus immunopurified using stringent conditions. Analyses by quantitative RT-PCR confirmed that virus mRNAs were not present in highly purified preparations. Lack of sgmRNA encapsidation was probably due to the absence of a packaging signal (Ψ) within these mRNAs. This information plus that from the encapsidation of a collection of TGEV-derived minigenomes suggested that Ψ is located at the 5′ end of the genome. To confirm that this was the case, a set of minigenomes was expressed that included an expression cassette for an mRNA including the β-glucuronidase gene (GUS) plus variable sequence fragments from the 5′ end of the virus genome potentially including Ψ. Insertion of the first 649 nucleotides (nt) of the TGEV genome led to the specific encapsidation of the mRNA, indicating that a Ψ was located within this region which was absent from all of the other virus mRNAs. The presence of this packaging signal was further confirmed by showing the expression and rescue of the mRNA including the first 649 nt of the TGEV genome under control of the cytomegalovirus promoter in TGEV-infected cells. This mRNA was successfully amplified and encapsidated, indicating that the first 649 nt of TGEV genome also contained the 5′ cis-acting replication signals. The encapsidation efficiency of this mRNA was about 30-fold higher than the genome encapsidation efficiency, as estimated by quantitative RT-PCR. In contrast, viral mRNAs presented significantly lower encapsidation efficiencies (about 100-fold) than those of the virus genome, strongly suggesting that TGEV mRNAs in fact lacked an alternative TGEV Ψ.
Potential Influence of the Microbiome on Infertility and Assisted Reproductive Technology

Abstract Although an altered vaginal microbiota has been demonstrated to affect parturition, its role in assisted reproductive technologies is uncertain. Nevertheless, the effect of known pathogens such as Mycoplasma tuberculosis, Chlamydia trachomatis, and Neisseria gonorrhoeae is clear, causing subclinical changes thought to be risk factors in subfertility. The Human Microbiome Project (HMP) has allowed for metagenomic studies to aid in characterizing normal vaginal flora. Recent findings from the HMP demonstrate that many different species of Lactobacillus are present in the vaginal tract, with a few that predominate. Studies that characterize the vaginal microbiome in assisted reproductive technology support the hypothesis that colonizing the transfer-catheter tip with Lactobacillus crispatus at the time of embryo transfer may increase the rates of implantation and live birth rate while decreasing the rate of infection. In addition, there is some evidence that a progesterone-resistant endometrium might increase the risk of an abnormal vaginal microbiome.
Polymerase Chain Reaction in Cerebrospinal Fluid for the Diagnosis of Congenital Toxoplasmosis

Background: Congenital toxoplasmosis can result in visual impairment, hearing loss, serious neurologic sequelae and death in the infant. We studied the potential of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for diagnosis of congenital toxoplasmosis. Methods: For this purpose, we studied both congenitally infected (diagnosed clinically and serologically) and noninfected infants born to untreated mothers. Results: The infants ranged in age from 0 to 180 days. CSF PCR was positive in 27 of the 58 (46.5%) congenitally infected infants and was negative in each of the 103 infants without congenital toxoplasmosis. The frequency of positive CSF PCR varied according to whether infants had major clinical signs of the disease; PCR was positive in 70.9%, 53.3% and 50.9% of those with hydrocephalus, cerebral calcifications and/or eye disease, respectively. Of 6 infants who were negative for both IgM and IgA antibodies, 3 had a positive PCR in their CSF as the confirmatory test for diagnosis of congenital toxoplasmosis. IgM and IgA antibodies and CSF PCR, when combined, yielded a higher sensitivity for diagnosis of congenital toxoplasmosis when compared with the performance of each test alone. Conclusions: Our findings reveal that in infants with clinical and serologic findings suggestive of congenital toxoplasmosis and born to untreated mothers, CSF PCR has the potential to increase the frequency of cases in which the diagnosis is confirmed.
Earnings components and the asymmetric timeliness of earnings: the case of FRS 3 in the UK

We exploit a unique setting to examine how an accounting regulation change affects the asymmetric timeliness of earnings. Financial Reporting Standard No. 3: Reporting Financial Performance (FRS 3) changed the way listed UK companies recognised bad news through ordinary or extraordinary items. FRS 3 tightened the definition of extraordinary items but gave wider discretion in classifying exceptional items. The results were that, after FRS 3, the asymmetric timeliness of earnings before extraordinary items increased and the association of earnings conservatism with discretionary accruals was weaker.
Victoria Legal Aid community research

Research conducted in June and July 2014 found strong community support for the services provided by Victoria Legal Aid. More than 1500 people were consulted as part of the research, with 92 per cent of respondents agreeing that it was important or very important for a government funded agency to help people who can’t afford legal services. The community consultation was undertaken to inform the development of Victoria Legal Aid’s strategic directions for the next three years and beyond, and was the first such research VLA have ever conducted. Respondents nominated people on a low income (79%), people experiencing or at risk of experiencing family violence (73%) and people with a disability (72%) as most deserving of legal aid. This is aligned with Victoria Legal Aid’s priority clients.
Treatment of primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma with rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone is associated with a high rate of primary refractory disease

Abstract The optimal therapy for primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma is a subject of ongoing debate, with no accepted standard of care. We performed a retrospective analysis of 63 patients in the modern era treated with rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone (R-CHOP), with or without radiation. Median age was 37 years (range 20–82). Eighty percent had limited stage disease and 71% were bulky. By age-adjusted International Prognostic Index (IPI), 15% were low-risk, 52% low-intermediate, 27% high-intermediate and 6% high-risk. Some 77% of responding patients received consolidative radiotherapy. Overall and complete response rates were 79% and 71%. Primary induction failure occurred in 13 (21%) patients. Five-year PFS and OS were 68% and 79%, respectively. Adverse prognostic features included increased IPI, advanced stage, advanced age and multiple extranodal sites. These data demonstrate an unacceptably high rate of primary refractory disease on R-CHOP, particularly among patients with high-risk features. Novel treatment approaches are needed that reduce primary refractory disease and reliance on mediastinal radiation in young people.
Bringing it Home: A Study of the Incentives Surrounding the Repatriation of Foreign Earnings Under the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004

The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 (the Act) creates a temporary tax holiday that effectively reduces the U.S. tax rate on repatriations from foreign subsidiaries from 35% to 5.25%. Firms receive the reduced tax rate by electing to take an 85% dividends received deduction on repatriations in 2004 or 2005. This paper investigates the characteristics of firms that repatriate under the Act and how they use the repatriated funds. We find that firms that repatriate under the Act have lower investment opportunities and higher free cash flows than nonrepatriating firms. Further, we find that repatriating firms increase share repurchases during 2005 by approximately $60 billion more than nonrepatriating firms, an amount that cannot be explained by differences in earnings between the two groups of firms. This increase represents about 20% of the $291.6 billion repatriated by our sample firms under the Act.
Candida africana and its closest relatives

Candida africana is a recently described opportunistic yeast pathogen that has been linked to vaginal candidiasis. This yeast was first described, in 1995, as atypical chlamydospore‐negative Candida albicans strain, and subsequently proposed as a new Candida species on the basis of morphological, biochemical and physiological characteristics clearly different from those of typical C. albicans isolates. Phylogenetic studies based on the comparison of ribosomal DNA sequences demonstrated that C. africana and C. albicans isolates are too closely related to draw any conclusions regarding the status of a new species. Therefore, on the basis of these studies, some authors considered C. africana as a biovar of C. albicans even if genetic differences may be found if additional regions of genomic DNA are sequenced. The taxonomic situation of C. africana and its phylogenetic relationship with other Candida species is still controversial and remains, at present, a matter of debate. Our goal is to review the current knowledge about C. africana and highlight the development of rapid and accurate tests for its discrimination from C. albicans, Candida dubliniensis and Candida stellatoidea. Furthermore, through the analysis of literature data, we have found that C. africana has a worldwide distribution and a considerable number of features making its study particularly interesting.
Evaluation of procedural learning transfer from a virtual environment to a real situation: a case study on tank maintenance training

Virtual reality opens new opportunities for operator training in complex tasks. It lowers costs and has fewer constraints than traditional training. The ultimate goal of virtual training is to transfer knowledge gained in a virtual environment to an actual real-world setting. This study tested whether a maintenance procedure could be learnt equally well by virtual-environment and conventional training. Forty-two adults were divided into three equally sized groups: virtual training (GVT® [generic virtual training]), conventional training (using a real tank suspension and preparation station) and control (no training). Participants then performed the procedure individually in the real environment. Both training types (conventional and virtual) produced similar levels of performance when the procedure was carried out in real conditions. Performance level for the two trained groups was better in terms of success and time taken to complete the task, time spent consulting job instructions and number of times the instructor provided guidance. Practitioner Summary: A key issue for virtual environments for training (VETs) is the transfer of skills to real situations. An experiment investigated whether skills acquired in a VET could be applied in a real situation. Results suggest that a procedure can be successfully transferred from the virtual to the real.