Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Manometric assessment of impaired esophageal motor function in primary Sjögren's syndrome.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate by manometry the esophageal motility changes in patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome (SS). METHODS Esophageal manometry was carried out in 25 (F/M: 22/3) primary SS patients with systemic manifestations and in 42 control subjects. The primary SS patients also completed a dysphagia scoring questionnaire and underwent whole salivary flow measurements. RESULTS As compared with the controls the primary SS patients exhibited a decreased lower esophageal sphincter (LES) pressure (P < 0.01) and a prolongation of LES relaxations (P < 0.02). In the esophageal body (EB) a decreased peristaltic velocity (p < 0.01), an increased duration of contractions (p < 0.01) and a higher occurrence of simultaneous waves (p < 0.01) were detected. Since decreased peristaltic velocity was the most frequent motor abnormality (11/25 cases), two groups of patients were formed for further analysis: patients with a decreased (group I, n = 11) and patients with a normal (group II, n = 14) peristaltic velocity. The SS patients with a decreased EB propagation velocity (< or = 2.7 cm/s, group I) displayed more significantly decreased pressures (p < 0.01) and more prolonged relaxation times (p < 0.05) in the LES, with higher rates of simultaneous contractions on dry swallows (p = 0.05) in the EB, as compared with those who had a normal peristaltic velocity (group II). Of the clinical parameters, the decreased EB peristaltic velocity was associated with a smaller whole saliva production both in the basal state and after stimulation. Furthermore, this group of patients had a significantly higher liquid requirement for swallowing than those who had normal peristaltic velocities (p = 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Primary SS patients with systemic manifestations exhibit several esophageal motility abnormalities. In this study, a decreased EB peristaltic velocity was the most common manometric change, and showed an association with impaired saliva production and higher liquid requirement for swallowing, but not with the laboratory parameters or with the systemic manifestations of the disease.
On Stability and Robust Stability of Positive Linear Volterra Equations

We first introduce the notion of positive linear Volterra integrodifferential equations. Then we give some characterizations of these positive equations. An explicit criterion and a Perron-Frobenius-type theorem for positive linear Volterra integrodifferential equations are given. Then we offer a new criterion for uniformly asymptotic stability of positive equations. Finally, we study stability radii of positive linear Volterra integrodifferential equations. It is proved that complex, real, and positive stability radii of positive linear Volterra equations under structured perturbations (or affine perturbations) coincide and can be computed by explicit formulae. To the best of our knowledge, most of the results of this paper are new.
Institutional investors and newly public firms

Using data from the Indian market, this study compares the investment behavior of domestic (DIIs) and foreign (FIIs) institutional investors in IPOs. We find that while FIIs subscribe to more shares at the time of the offering, DIIs’ subscription appears to be more measured and as a result their subscription subsumes that of FIIs in explaining listing returns. In the immediate post-listing period, FIIs reduce their IPO holdings more deeply than DIIs and they do this more in cold than hot IPOs. FIIs adjust their portfolios in the post-IPO period by reducing their holdings in smaller and younger firms, i.e. firms with high stock volatility, and increasing their holdings in stock with higher returns. Overall, our results show that the behavior of FIIs in Indian IPOs is consistent with the view of investors chasing hot markets with hot money.
Student attitude towards communication skills learning in a Caribbean medical school.

BACKGROUND Medical student attitudes towards communication skills are important for curriculum planners and teachers. Xavier University School of Medicine (XUSOM) is a private medical school admitting students mainly from the United States and Canada. AIMS Attitude of students towards communication skills has not been previously studied in the institution. Hence the present study was carried out. METHOD The study was carried out among the first, second, third and fourth semester undergraduate medical (MD) students at XUSOM, Aruba during July 2013 using the communication skills attitude scale (CSAS). Respondents' age, gender, nationality, occupation of parents, place of residence of family, semester of study were noted. The positive and negative attitude scale scores were calculated and compared among different subgroups of respondents (p<0.05). RESULTS Fifty-one of the seventy-three students (69.9 per cent) participated. The majority were between 20 to 25 years of age, of American nationality, from metro cities and had excellent or good self-perceived verbal and written communication skills. The mean positive attitude scale (PAS) score was 47.65 (maximum being 65) and the mean negative attitude scale (NAS) score was 31.06 (maximum 65). PAS score was significantly higher among respondents whose fathers were not in health related professions. NAS scores were significantly lower among the third and fourth semester respondents. CONCLUSION Students overall had a positive attitude towards communication skills but negative attitudes were also noted Based on results of the study and a review of literature we are planning to start communication skills learning in the institution right from the first semester and students will be provided opportunities for supervised practice during early clinical exposure, hospital observership and with standardised patients. The medical humanities module will be expanded and communication skills learning will continue during the clinical years with higher order skills being taught.
Organization Renewal: A Holistic Approach to Organization Development

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IoTCandyJar : Towards an Intelligent-Interaction Honeypot for IoT Devices

In recent years, the emerging Internet-of-Things (IoT) has led to concerns about the security of networked embedded devices. There is a strong need to develop suitable and costefficient methods to find vulnerabilities in IoT devices in order to address them before attackers take advantage of them. In traditional IT security, honeypots are commonly used to understand the dynamic threat landscape without exposing critical assets. In previous BlackHat conferences, conventional honeypot technology has been discussed multiple times. In this work, we focus on the adaptation of honeypots for improving the security of IoTs, and argue why we need to have a huge innovation to build honeypot for IoT devices. Due to the heterogeneity of IoT devices, manually crafting the low-interaction honeypot is not affordable; on the other hand, purchasing all of physical IoT devices to build highinteraction honeypot is not affordable. This dilemma forced us to seek an innovative way to build honeypot for IoT devices. We propose using machine learning technology to automatically learn behavioral knowledge of IoT devices and build “intelligent-interaction” honeypot. We also leverage multiple machine learning techniques to improve the quality and quantity.
Childhood Sexual Abuse, PTSD, and the Functional Roles of Alcohol Use Among Women Drinkers

The present study investigated whether a history of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) or current post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was associated with alcohol-related expectancies and recalled effects of drinking reported by women in substance user treatment. The results indicate that CSA status was not associated with the alcohol-related expectancies or effects of drinking reported by women in substance user treatment. However, those currently manifesting PTSD were more likely than their peers without PTSD to report greater alcohol-related expectancies of tension reduction and having experienced greater positive enhancement from drinking. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are considered.
A General Consumer Preference Model for Experience Products: Application to Internet Recommendation Services

The authors present a general consumer preference model for experience products that overcomes the limitations of consumer choice models, especially when it is not easy to consider some qualitative attributes of a product or when there are too many attributes relative to the available amount of preference data, by capturing the effects of unobserved product attributes with the residuals of reference consumers for the same product. They decompose the deterministic component of product utility into two parts: that accounted for by observed attributes and that due to nonobserved attributes. The authors estimate the unobserved component by relating it to the corresponding residuals of virtual experts representing homogeneous groups of people who experienced the product earlier and evaluated it. Their methodology involves identifying such virtual experts and determining the relative importance they should be given in the estimation of the target person's residuals. Using Bayesian estimation methods and Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation inference, the authors apply their approach to two types of consumer preference data: (1) online consumer ratings (stated preferences) data for Internet recommendation services and (2) offline consumer viewership (revealed preferences) data for movies. The results empirically show that this new approach outperforms several alternative collaborative filtering and attribute-based preference models with both in- and out-of-sample fits. The model is applicable to both Internet recommendation services and consumer choice studies.
Relationship between Skepticism and Decision Making in Audit

Auditors' decision making is especially important and provide the basis of their commenting in audit report. So, recognizing the factors affect on decision making of independent auditors can help audit institutions greatly. One of the important factors that affect decision-making is skepticism. The purpose of this research is investigating the relationship between skepticism indexes and decision making of independent auditors in audit institutions of Iran certified accountant's society. In this study, using 150 independent auditor opinions as a statistical sample and by using modified questionnaire of Hurtt et al., we concluded that in audit institutions of Iran certified accountant's society, there is a positive and significant relationship between skepticism and decision making.
Tranexamic Acid: Promise or Panacea The Impact of Air Medical Administration of Tranexamic Acid on Morbidity, Mortality, and Length of Stay

The MATTERs and CRASH-2 studies demonstrate that tranexamic acid (TXA) reduces mortality in patients with traumatic hemorrhage. However, their results, conducted in foreign countries and with U.S. military soldiers, provoke concerns over generalizability to civilian trauma patients in the United States was reported. The evaluation of patient outcomes following treatment with TXA by a civilian air medical program. A retrospective chart review of trauma patients transported by air service to a Level 1 trauma center was conducted. For the purposes of intervention evaluation, patients meeting this criterion for the 2 years (2012–2014) prior to therapy implementation were compared with patients treated during the 2-year study period (2014–2016). Goals were to evaluate morbidity, mortality, and length of stay. During the review, 82 control and 49 study patients were identified as meeting inclusion criteria. Patients in the control group were found to be less acute, which correlated with shorter hospital stays and better discharge outcomes. Multiple patients in the study group who should have expired according to a significantly elevated Trauma Revised Injury Severity Score (TRISS) survived, whereas multiple patients in the control group expired despite a low TRISS calculation. This is the first outcome-based study conducted in a U.S. trauma system. The outcomes in civilian trauma patients in the United States do not follow that of the previous MATTERs and CRASH-2 studies. However, this study still shows benefit to TXA administration and reduced risk for administration to patients with head trauma and occurrence of venous thromboembolism. Randomized control trials are needed to evaluate the role of TXA administration in the United States.
Direct diode pumped Ti:Sapphire ultrafast regenerative amplifier system

We report on the first to our knowledge direct diode-pumped Ti:sapphire ultrafast regenerative amplifier system. Pumped with CW 450nm fiber-coupled laser diode modules and employing cryocooling of the ti:sapphire, this first implementation produces multi-μJ pulse energy at 50–250 kHz rep rate. We discuss the unique challenges as well as the solutions to these challenges for this laser system. Direct diode pumping of ti:sapphire promises new life for the most-widely used ultrafast technology for basic science research, as well as for the bio-medicine and micro-machining.
Situational determinants of fish consumption.

Despite having properties well‐suited to “healthy‐eating”, fish is a declining product. Consumers’ evaluations of fish are known to differ between consumers and non‐consumers, but the precise differences, which might be of use in the development of a marketing campaign, are vague. Analyses suggest that the factors that influence consumer choice are predominantly environmental, and a model of situational determinants of consumption (the behavioural perspective model or BPM) is proposed as a theoretical framework. A random sample of UK consumers (n = 311) provided information on their past and intended purchasing of three types of fish product – fresh, frozen and canned – and on their beliefs regarding the consequences of fish consumption. Factor analysis reveals that such beliefs regarding fish fall into one of five components: versatility, situational relevance, negative properties, economy, and convenience. Multiple regression analysis indicates that these are differentially related to fish consumption. In general, fish consumers differed on all five factors from non‐consumers, but important deviations from this generalisation were identified for fresh, frozen and canned fish. Suggestions for marketing action and further research are derived from the practical applicability of the results and the support they provide for components of the BPM.
Entrepreneurial orientation and internationalisation of multinational enterprises : a focus on firm performance in emerging markets.

II DECLARATION III DEDICATION IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS V LIST OF TABLES IX LIST OF FIGURES IX LIST OF MODELS XI CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY 1 1.2 CONTEXT OF THE STUDY 1 1.3 PROBLEM STATEMENT 2 1.3. 1 MAIN PROBLEM 2 1.3. 2 SUB-PROBLEMS 3 1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 5 1.5 DELIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY 6 1.6 DEFINITION OF TERMS 7 1.7 ASSUMPTIONS 9 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 11 2.
Modeling Spread of KPC-Producing Bacteria in Long-Term Acute Care Hospitals in the Chicago Region, USA

OBJECTIVE Prevalence of bla KPC-encoding Enterobacteriaceae (KPC) in Chicago long-term acute care hospitals (LTACHs) rose rapidly after the first recognition in 2007. We studied the epidemiology and transmission capacity of KPC in LTACHs and the effect of patient cohorting. METHODS Data were available from 4 Chicago LTACHs from June 2012 to June 2013 during a period of bundled interventions. These consisted of screening for KPC rectal carriage, daily chlorhexidine bathing, medical staff education, and 3 cohort strategies: a pure cohort (all KPC-positive patients on 1 floor), single rooms for KPC-positive patients, and a mixed cohort (all KPC-positive patients on 1 floor, supplemented with KPC-negative patients). A data-augmented Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method was used to model the transmission process. RESULTS Average prevalence of KPC colonization was 29.3%. On admission, 18% of patients were colonized; the sensitivity of the screening process was 81%. The per admission reproduction number was 0.40. The number of acquisitions per 1,000 patient days was lowest in LTACHs with a pure cohort ward or single rooms for colonized patients compared with mixed-cohort wards, but 95% credible intervals overlapped. CONCLUSIONS Prevalence of KPC in LTACHs is high, primarily due to high admission prevalence and the resultant impact of high colonization pressure on cross transmission. In this setting, with an intervention in place, patient-to-patient transmission is insufficient to maintain endemicity. Inclusion of a pure cohort or single rooms for KPC-positive patients in an intervention bundle seemed to limit transmission compared to use of a mixed cohort. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2015;36(10):1148–1154
First versus subsequent return-stroke current and field peaks in negative cloud-to-ground lightning discharges

[1] We examine relative magnitudes of electric field peaks of first and subsequent return strokes in negative cloud-to-ground lightning flashes recorded in Florida, Austria, Brazil, and Sweden. On average, the electric field peak of the first stroke is appreciably, 1.7 to 2.4 times, larger than the field peak of the subsequent stroke (except for studies in Austria where the ratio varies from 1.0 to 2.3, depending on methodology and instrumentation). Similar results were previously reported from electric field studies in Florida, Sweden, and Sri Lanka. For comparison, directly measured peak currents for first strokes are, on average, a factor of 2.3 to 2.5 larger than those for subsequent strokes. There are some discrepancies between first versus subsequent stroke intensities reported from different studies based on data reported by lightning locating systems (LLS). The ratio of LLS-reported peak currents for first and subsequent strokes confirmed by video records is 1.7 to 2.1 in Brazil, while in the United States (Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, and the Great Plains) it varies from 1.1 to 1.6, depending on methodology used. The smaller ratios derived from the LLS studies are likely to be due to poor detection of relatively small subsequent strokes. The smaller values in Austria are possibly related (at least in part) to the higher percentage (about 50% versus 24–38% in other studies) of flashes with at least one subsequent stroke greater than the first. The effects of excluding single-stroke flashes or subsequent strokes in newly formed channels appear to be relatively small.
Correlators by Loop Equations

In the BMN approach to N = 4 SYM a large class of correlators of interest are expressible in terms of expectation values of traces of words in a zero-dimensional Gaussian complex matrix model. We develop a loop-equation based, analytic strategy for evaluating such expectation values to any order in the genus expansion. We reproduce the expectation values which were needed for the calculation of the one-loop, genus one correction to the anomalous dimension of BMN-operators and which were earlier obtained by combinatorial means. Furthermore, we present the expectation values needed for the calculation of the one-loop, genus two correction. 1 E-mail: eynard@spht.saclay. cea.fr, Permanent address: Service de Physique Théorique de Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France. 2 E-mail: kristjan@alf.nbi. dk, work supported by the Danish Natural Science Research Council
SARS epidemic: Teachers' experiences using ICTs

In 2003, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS spread rapidly via international air travel from China to many cities across the world, resulting in over 8000 cases of infections and 774 deaths. In Hong Kong, as the virus invaded the community so did fear. The government put in place measures to help the public guard against the virus, one of which was to close all schools and universities. 1302 schools were closed. 1,000,000 children stayed at home and 50,600 teachers were faced with the challenge of using digital technology to provide an education that would reach beyond school walls into the homes and computers of Hong Kong students. Teachers had to re-think their teaching strategies and provide their students with new and different opportunities to work through curriculum requirements. SARS provided a catalyst for intense use of ICT in ways which had not been anticipated or prepared for. The plunge into ICT was a voyage of exciting discovery for some and frustration for others. Either way it had an impact on subsequent perceptions of the potential and shortcomings of ICT in education in Hong Kong. This paper focuses on teachers’ perspectives of the role played by digital technology to meet the challenges faced by Hong Kong educators.
Winning at retail: research insights to improve the packaging of children’s products

Emphasises the importance of packaging in influencing the decision to buy, especially in the case of children’s products, since buying decisions are often impulse‐driven and/or gift‐oriented; the mothers who are usually doing the shopping will be focusing on whether the child will like the product, so that licensed products tend to be favoured. Outlines the PRS Eye‐Tracking studies, which allow documentation of what shoppers see ‐ and miss ‐ as they consider displays, product types and individual packages at the point of sale (POS). Assesses packaging and merchandising systems in terms of three main challenges: generating consideration, differentiating from competitors, and closing the sale. Suggests ways to ensure that products are visible and considered for purchase, including placement at eye level, and colour contrast; differentiating products from others by conveying “fun”; and closing sales by clear quick messaging.
The Influence of Music Therapy on Perceived Stressors and Anxiety Levels of Hemodialysis Patients

Background: This study was designed as a pretest–posttest control group experiment. The aim was to identify the influence of music therapy on the perceived stressors and anxiety levels of hemodialysis (HD) patients. Methods: The data were collected in HD Units of Ataturk University Yakutiye Research Hospital and Regional Education, Application and Research Hospital between February and March. The study population consisted of 104 patients who received dialysis. Since four patients refused to participate, the study was completed with 100 patients. While one-half of the patients formed a control group, the other half consisted of an experimental group. Patient introduction form, Hemodialysis Stressor Scale, and State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) forms were used to collect the data. HSS was used to identify the stressors perceived by the patients, and STAI form was used to classify anxiety levels. Data were analyzed by using t-test and chi-square test. Results: It was found that differences between average pretest and posttest scores of perceived psychosocial, physiological, and total stressors were statistically significant. It was also found that differences between average pretherapy and posttherapy test scores of state and trait anxiety were statistically significant. Conclusions: Music therapy was influential in reducing anxiety levels and perceived stressors of HD patients. It is concluded that music therapy—as an independent nursing initiative—can be used to help in fulfilling the physical, emotional, and psychological requirements of patients.