Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Situational analysis of the BDS Market : empirical evidence from Kenya

The paper analyses the situational forces in the Business Development Services (BDS) market in Kenya showing how BDS Providers' (BDSPs) strategically respond to the forces in their environment. The study was done through the use of grounded theory methodology on eleven BDSPs, four micro and small enterprises (MSEs) and two BDS facilitators in Kenya over twelve months between May 2008 and August 2010. The study established that BDSPs operate under weak regulatory framework which encourages unfair competition alongside donor agencies who continue to give free and/or subsidized services. The study also revealed that BDS services are largely unappreciated by MSEs many of who are operating under serious resource constraints. In addition, some of the MSEs do not appreciate professionalism. BDSPs respond to the situational forces in their environments using a number of strategies which evolve over time namely: client, product, differentiation, price, self-regulation diversification, and a simultaneous competition and collaboration. The study revealed paradoxical relationship between donor agencies and BDSPs showing how on one hand, BDSPs perceive donor agencies negatively as distorting the market by compromising small scale entrepreneurs' willingness to pay for services and on the other hand, benefiting from the donor support.
Informal Economy in Albania: Size and Consequences on Financial Deepening

The main purpose of this paper is to assess empirically the size of the informal economy in Albania over the last two decades, and its consequences on the financial deepening of the country. We will present a brief review of the informal economy development in Albania, and assess its size employing three empirical approaches: national accounts discrepancies, electrical energy consumption, and simple currency ratio approach. Previous studies on this topic and our findings suggest that the informal sector still accounts for a significant proportion of output and employment in Albania. Operating informally makes it difficult to households and enterprises to prove their creditworthiness since they cannot provide reliable documentation on their financial situation thus holding back financial deepening. Digitalization of information sources can enable better statistical reporting and provide possibilities for cross checking, better measurement of the formal economy and subsequently assessments of the informal sector.
Lessons from Yanacocha: assessing mining impacts on hydrological systems and water distribution in the Cajamarca region, Peru

ABSTRACT A major concern of mining activities is their influence on hydrological systems. This article highlights impacts on water flows and distribution in the Mashcon catchment in Cajamarca, Peru, one of those most affected by the Yanacocha mining project. Some important concerns are identified regarding changes in water flows, lowering of water tables, and decrease of base flows. These considerations indicate deficiencies in distributing actual water uses in relation to the allocation of water rights. Finally, the article discusses challenges for regulation of mining, including democratic processes for water management that require clear accountability in the context of local social needs.
'Safety: everybody’s concern, everybody’s duty?' Questioning the significance of 'active citizenship' and 'social cohesion' for people's perception of safety

The catchphrase “Safety: everybody’s concern, everybody’s duty” implies that in order to safe-guard the social order and safety we, the professionals as well as the public, need to unite and work together. In this sense, social connectedness and civic engagement are perceived as the prime sources to counter crime and people’s perception of safety. In this paper, we will first clarify that the references to ‘active citizenship’ and ‘social cohesion’ in criminal policy discourse are the result of the development of ‘perception of safety’ as an autonomous subject for research and policy. Policymakers have come to see (in)security as a phenomenon that needs to be explained by taking into account crime and non-crime related factors. Next, we will describe the emergence of ‘social cohesion’ and ‘active citizenship’ as natural barriers against crime and other deviant behaviour and as prerequisites for people’s perception of safety. In the third part, however, we will point out that both concepts are not necessarily positively interlinked with people’s ‘perception of safety’. Moreover we will indicate that activating civic engagement and stimulating social cohesion can even be detrimental to people’s perception of safety. In the final part we will suggest that in order to understand people’s perception of safety, we need to consider the process of identity formation and social categorization.
Elevated levels of antibodies against 70 kDa heat shock proteins in the sera of patients with HIV infection

Heat shock proteins (Hsp), especially 70 kDa heat shock protein (Hsp70) play an important role in the life cycle of HIV‐1 virus. Hsp70 is overexpressed in HIV‐infected cells and this is the most abundant Hsp associated with HIV virions. The aim of our study was to investigate whether HIV infection increases the extent of specific humoral immune response against Hsp70. The serum concentration of anti‐Hsp70 IgG antibodies was measured in 47 HIV‐infected patients, and 62 healthy, HIV‐seronegative persons. Nineteen patients on highly active anti‐retroviral therapy (HAART) were followed for 24 months in a longitudinal study. Anti‐Hsp70 antibodies were measured by ELISA, using recombinant human Hsp70. Levels of anti‐Hsp70 antibodies were significantly (P < 0.0001) higher in the HIV‐infected patients (median: 1409 (25th–75th percentile: 1031–2214) AU/ml) than in healthy control subjects (626 (429–970) AU/ml). In 19 HIV patients, serum levels of anti‐Hsp70 antibodies significantly (P < 0.001) decreased during 24 (11–41) months HAART (1309 (887–2213) AU/ml before and 640 (386–959) AU/ml during HAART), accompanied by viral load reduction and CD4+ count elevation. It is concluded that HIV‐infection induces a marked increase in the anti‐Hsp70 antibody levels, which is consistent with the enhanced expression of Hsp70 on the surface of HIV‐infected cells and/or incorporation of the protein into the membrane of HIV virions. J. Med. Virol. 71:480–482, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Assessing students' Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies

This article describes the development and validation of a new self-report instrument, the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory, which is designed to assess adolescent and adult readers' metacognitive awareness and perceived use of reading strategies while reading academic or school-related materials. There were 3 strategy subscales or factors: Global Reading Strategies, Problem-Solving Strategies, and Support Reading Strategies. The reliability and factorial validity of the scale were demonstrated. After a brief review of the literature, the development and validation of the instrument are described, and its psychometric properties are discussed. In addition, directions for administering and scoring the instrument are provided, and suggestions for interpreting the results obtained are offered. Finally, the scales' implications for reading research and instruction are discussed.
Evidence for a biological dawn and dusk in the human circadian timing system

1 Because individuals differ in the phase angle at which their circadian rhythms are entrained to external time cues, averaging group data relative to clock time sometimes obscures abrupt changes that are characteristic of waveforms of the rhythms in individuals. Such changes may have important implications for the temporal organization of human circadian physiology. 2 To control for variance in phase angle of entrainment, we used dual internal reference points ‐ onset and offset of the nocturnal period of melatonin secretion ‐ to calculate average profiles of circadian rhythm data from five previously published studies. 3 Onset and/or offset of melatonin secretion were found to coincide with switch‐like transitions between distinct diurnal and nocturnal periods of circadian rhythms in core body temperature, sleepiness, power in the theta band of the wake EEG, sleep propensity and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep propensity. 4 Transitions between diurnal and nocturnal periods of sleep‐wake and cortisol circadian rhythms were found to lag the other transitions by 1‐3 h. 5 When the duration of the daily light period was manipulated experimentally, melatonin‐onset‐related transitions in circadian rhythms appeared to be entrained to the light‐to‐dark transition, while melatonin‐offset‐related transitions appeared to be entrained to the dark‐to‐light transition. 6 These results suggest a model of the human circadian timing system in which two states, one diurnal and one nocturnal, alternate with one another, and in which transitions between the states are switch‐like and are separately entrained to dawn and dusk. 7 This description of the human circadian system is similar to the Pittendrigh‐Daan model of the rodent circadian system, and it suggests that core features of the system in other mammals are conserved in humans.
The personality of populists: provocateurs, charismatic leaders, or drunken dinner guests?

Abstract The ‘populist phenomenon’ has received a lot of attention in recent years. Yet little is known about the populists themselves: who are they? They are often described as bad-mannered provocateurs disrupting the political game, but also as charismatic leaders able to persuade and motivate. Can a populist ‘style’ or ‘personality’ be identified? This article assesses to what extent populists score differently from ‘mainstream’ politicians on established personality inventories. Using a new dataset based on expert ratings for 152 candidates (including 33 populists) having competed in 73 elections worldwide, it is found that populists score lower on agreeableness, emotional stability and conscientiousness. At the same time, populists score higher on extraversion, narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. These results have important implications for the study of the success of populists in contemporary democracies and beyond.
Chronic health conditions and survival after out-of-hospital ventricular fibrillation cardiac arrest

Objective: To investigate whether chronic clinical comorbidity, as collected from emergency medical services (EMS) reports, influences survival after out-of-hospital ventricular fibrillation (VF) cardiac arrest. Methods: In this observational retrospective cohort study in King County, Washington, USA 1043 people who suffered out-of-hospital VF arrest due to heart disease between 1 January 1999 and 31 December 2003 were studied. Chronic conditions were ascertained and tallied from EMS reports using a uniform abstraction form by people blinded to outcome status. The outcome was survival to hospital discharge. Results: 75% (776/1043) of patients had at least one chronic health condition and 51% (529/1043) had prior clinically recognised heart disease. Overall, the increasing count of chronic conditions was inversely associated with the odds of survival to hospital discharge after adjustment for potential confounders (OR 0.84 (95% CI 0.74 to 0.95) for each additional chronic condition). The chronic condition–outcome association tended to be more prominent among those with longer EMS response intervals (p = 0.07 for interaction term between condition count and response interval). For example, the OR of survival was 0.72 (95% CI 0.59 to 0.88) for each additional chronic condition when the EMS response interval was 8 min compared with an OR of 0.95 (95% CI 0.79 to 1.14) when the EMS response interval was 3 min. Conclusion: In this cohort, an increasing burden of clinical comorbidity based on a review of EMS reports was associated with a lower odds of survival after VF arrest. This finding suggests that chronic conditions influence arrest pathophysiology and in turn could help guide resuscitation care.
Investigation of the role of congenital cytomegalovirus infection in the etiology of enlarged vestibular aqueducts.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether congenital cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is an etiologic factor in the pathogenesis of enlarged vestibular aqueducts (EVA). DESIGN Two different cohort studies. Subjects The study population comprised 19 subjects with a history of congenital CMV infection and sensorineural hearing loss (cohort 1); 39 subjects with nonsyndromic EVA and their unaffected mothers (cohort 2); and 16 control subjects with EVA associated with Pendred syndrome and bi-allelic mutations of the SLC26A4 gene and their unaffected mothers. RESULTS In cohort 1, we detected EVA in 0 of 19 subjects with congenital CMV infection and sensorineural hearing loss. In cohort 2, anti-CMV serologic profiles were consistent with possible congenital CMV infection in 10 (26%) of 39 subjects with nonsyndromic EVA and 6 (38%) of 16 control subjects with Pendred syndrome (P = .52). These seroprevalence rates are similar to those expected in the general population (40%). CONCLUSION In spite of their auditory phenotypic similarities, congenital CMV infection is not a significant factor in the etiology of EVA.
Which Side of the Economy Is Affected More by Oil Prices: Supply or Demand?

This chapter develops a New Keynesian model to examine a theoretical global economy with two basic macroeconomic components: an energy producer and an energy consumer. (From now on in this chapter whenever we refer to the “energy” or “energy prices”, we refer to “crude oil” and “crude oil price”, which is the main source of energy.) This simple economy uses these two components to evaluate how oil prices affect the consumer economy’s gross domestic product and inflation from 1960 to 2011. This model assumes that changes in the oil price transfer to macro variables through either supply (aggregate supply curve) or demand channels (aggregate demand curve). In order to examine the effects of this transfer, an IS curve is used to look at the demand side and a Phillips curve is used to analyze inflationary effects from the supply side. The empirical analysis concludes that movements in the oil price mainly affect the economy through the demand side (shifting the aggregate demand curve) by affecting household expenditures and energy consumption. This analysis provides several additional findings, among which is that easy monetary policies amplify energy demand more than supply, resulting in skyrocketing crude oil prices, which inhibit economic growth.
Medico-legal autopsy of 1355 unclaimed dead bodies brought to a tertiary care hospital in Delhi, India (2006–2012)

In India, it is estimated that about 13 million people are homeless. As these individuals have no close acquaintances, in the event of death, their bodies remain unclaimed. These unclaimed corpses pose a major challenge for the local law enforcement agencies in identification and thus become an obstacle in solving the cases of missing persons. We sought to review the autopsy characteristics and causes of death in the unclaimed/unidentified bodies autopsied at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) from 2006 to 2012. Among the total of 11,786 cases autopsied during the year 2006 to 2012, 1335 (11%) were unclaimed. Most of the cases were males (91%) with a male-to-female ratio of 9:1. Mean age of the cohort was 43 years (range, 1–85 years). Natural events were the foremost cause of death and were more commonly seen in males. While accidental, suicidal and homicidal modes were common in younger age groups; natural manner of death predominated in the elderly. Most of the cases were found dead on the roadside. This paper also compares with the previous study in the same set-up during the time period 2001 to 2005. The authors believe that knowledge about the existing healthcare facilities need to be reinforced and their utilisation promoted.
Vascular and respiratory impact in neurodegenerative diseases

L'âge, les facteurs de risque vasculaire, l'inactivite physique sont connus comme facteurs de risque des syndromes dementiels.Le sommeil joue un role majeur dans la physiologie cerebrale. Le syndrome d'apnee du sommeil (SAS) est une pathologie frequente chez les sujets âges, surtout chez ceux souffrant de pathologie dementielle. Les etudes chez les patients atteints d'hypertension, et/ou de fibrillation atriale montrent une prevalence 2 a 3 fois plus elevee de SAS. Le cerveau et sa vascularisation forment un ensemble avec le coeur et les poumons qui fournissent l'apport en energie et en oxygene. Une dynamique harmonieuse entre ces trois organes est necessaire au fonctionnement physiologique du cerveau et un dysfonctionnement de cet ensemble pourrait engendrer une alteration cognitive. Ce travail a pour but d'analyser les liens entre l'alteration du debit vasculaire de la macro-circulation temoin de l'activite cardiaque, la pulsatilite du liquide cephalospinal refletant l'hydrodynamique cerebrale, les parametres respiratoires en lien avec les apnees du sommeil, et le statut cognitif du sujet âge. En nous basant sur les resultats des bilans clinique, biologique, neuropsychologique, de l'imagerie par resonnance magnetique (morphologie et flux), des holters tensionnel et rythmique dans une population de 95 patients âges cognitivement alteres, nous avons analyse les relations entre les parametres concernant le cerveau, le coeur et les poumons. Cette approche revele une relation entre ces trois systemes et la cognition. La decouverte d'une prevalence de plus de 70% de SAS dans cette population associee a d’autres resultats inattendus devrait faire l'objet de travaux ulterieurs
Behavior Problems of Children in Kinship Care

ABSTRACT. An increasing number of children needing out-of-home care are being placed with relatives. Despite this pervasive policy, there has been scant research on children in this arrangement called kinship care. The objectives of this study were (1) to assess the behavior of children in kinship care and (2) to identify predictors of their behavior. The caregivers of 346 children in kinship care completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Background information was obtained from caregivers and caseworkers. Forty-two percent of boys and 28% of girls had overall CBCL scores in the clinical range, compared with an expected 10% in the general population. Logistic regressions revealed several variables significantly associated with behavior problems including: reason for placement, gender, race, caregiver's perception of the child, caregiver's educational level, number of contacts between caregiver and caseworker, long-term plan, and child's age. The frequent behavior problems among these high-risk children in kinship care suggest they all deserve mental health evaluations; at a minimum, periodic screening is indicated. J Dev Behav Pediatr 14:386–393, 1993. Index terms: kinship care, foster care, behavior.
Heart Failure With Preserved Ejection Fraction Induces Beiging in Adipose Tissue

Background—Despite the increasing prevalence of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) in humans, there are no evidence-based therapies for HFpEF. Clinical studies suggest a relationship between obesity-associated dysfunctional adipose tissue (AT) and HFpEF. However, an apparent obesity paradox exists in some HF populations with a higher body mass index. We sought to determine whether HFpEF exerted effects on AT and investigated the involved mechanisms. Methods and Results—Mice underwent d-aldosterone infusion, uninephrectomy, and were given 1% saline for 4 weeks. HFpEF mice developed hypertension, left ventricular hypertrophy, and diastolic dysfunction and had higher myocardial natriuretic peptide expression. Although body weights were similar in HFpEF and sham-operated mice, white AT was significantly smaller in HFpEF than in sham (epididymal AT, 7.59 versus 10.67 mg/g; inguinal AT, 6.34 versus 8.38 mg/g). These changes were associated with smaller adipocyte size and increased beiging markers (ucp-1, cidea, and eva) in white AT. Similar findings were seen in HFpEF induced by transverse aortic constriction. Increased activation of natriuretic peptide signaling was seen in white AT of HFpEF mice. The ratio of the signaling receptor, natriuretic peptide receptor type A, to the clearance receptor, nprc, was increased as was p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase activation. However, HFpEF mice failed to regulate body temperature during cold temperature exposure. In HFpEF, despite a larger brown AT mass (5.96 versus 4.50 mg/g), brown AT showed reduced activity with decreased uncoupling protein 1 (ucp-1), cell death-inducing DFFA-like effector a (cidea), and epithelial V-like antigen (eva) expression and decreased expression of lipolytic enzymes (hormone-sensitive lipase, lipoprotein lipase, and fatty acid binding protein 4) versus sham. Conclusions—These findings show that HFpEF is associated with beiging in white AT and with dysfunctional brown AT.
Protamine 1: Protamine 2 stoichiometry in the sperm of eutherian mammals *

We have compared the relative proportion of protamine 1 (P1) and protamine 2 (P2) bound to DNA in the sperm of a variety of eutherian mammals to obtain insight into how these two proteins interact in sperm chromatin. Gel electrophoresis (combined with microdensitometry) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) were used to determine the content of the two protamines, and the identity of each protein was confirmed by amino‐terminal sequencing or amino acid analysis. The sperm of all species examined contained P1, but P2 was found to be present only in certain species. Unlike the fixed ratio of core histones that package DNA into nucleosomes in all somatic cells, the proportion of P2 present in mature sperm was found to be continuously variable from 0 to nearly 80%. These results show that P1 and P2 do not interact with each other or DNA to form a discrete complex or subunit structure that is dependent upon particular P1/P2 stoichiometries. Data obtained from a number of closely and distantly related species also indicate that while the P2 content of sperm chromatin is allowed to vary over a wide range during the course of evolution, the relative proportion of P1 and P2 are tightly regulated within a genus. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 61:519–527, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Comparison of Cointegration and Copula Asset Allocation Approaches

The empirical performance of cointegration and copula asset allocation techniques are compared against that of the market. Multivariate copula structures are used to derive index-tracking portfolios which are then compared with that of portfolios constructed using cointegration techniques. The results suggest that modelling the long-term relationships between stocks by means of the cointegration approach do not consistently lead to portfolios that outperform the benchmark. Using a short-term asset allocation approach, such as the copula-simulation approach, lead to portfolios that perform at least as well as the cointegration portfolios.