Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Financial Reforms, Financial Development, and Economic Growth in the Ivory Coast

This study investigates the relationship between financial development and economic growth in the Ivory Coast over the period from 1961 to 2014. The final goal of this research is to develop a procedure to identify the effects of financial reforms for the Ivory Coast economic growth. Therefore, to achieve this goal, we first conducted a common component analysis (CCA) on our time series data to create: (1) a variable that would be the most appropriate proxy for the financial development; and (2) a vector of control variables for economic growth. Second, a vector autoregression model (VAR) with restriction was used as an appropriate specification of the dynamic relationship between the proxy of financial development, economic growth and other important factors of that growth (vector of control variables). Results suggest that in the Ivory Coast, growth in financial development is synonymous with the overall economic growth of the national economy. This study addresses the controversy over the appropriate proxy for the financial development in the Ivory Coast and it establishes a causal relationship between the financial development and the national economic growth.
Home-ownership and housing wealth of elderly divorcees in ten European countries

ABSTRACT Recent research has shown that divorce reduces the likelihood of home-ownership. Even in later life, ever-divorced men and women display lower home-ownership rates than their married counterparts. There is, however, a lack of knowledge about the consequences of divorce for a majority of divorcees: those who remain in home-ownership or move back into home-ownership after an episode in rental housing. This paper investigates the economic costs of divorce by focusing on the housing wealth of ever-divorced home-owners in later life (age 50 and over), against the background of changing welfare and housing regimes. The empirical analysis is based on data from ten European countries that participated in the third and fourth waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE 2007/8 and 2011/2). Our analyses support an association between divorce experience and lower housing wealth holdings for men and women who remain in home-ownership after a divorce, or re-enter home-ownership after a spell in rental housing. This means that a divorce has negative housing consequences for a broader range of individuals than thus far assumed. In countries with a dynamic housing market and a deregulated housing finance system, ever-divorced home-owners are worse off than their married counterparts. In these countries, more elderly individuals with a weaker financial situation are able to remain in or regain access to (mortgaged) home-ownership, but at the cost of lower housing equity. Further research should focus on the implications (e.g. for wellbeing, economic position) of such cross-country variations.
An adaptive road ROI determination algorithm for lane detection

Road conditions can provide important information for driving safety in driving assistance system. The input images usually include unnecessary information and road conditions need to be analyzed only in a region of interest (ROI) to reduce the amount of computation. In this paper, a vision-based road ROI determination algorithm is proposed to detect the road region using the positional information of a vanishing point and line segments. The line segments are detected using Hough Transform. The road ROI can be determined automatically and adaptively in every frame. The proposed method is applied to various video images from black boxes, and is verified to be robust.
Mechanism of T Cell Tolerance Induced by Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells

Ag-specific T cell tolerance plays a critical role in tumor escape. Recent studies implicated myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) in the induction of CD8+ T cell tolerance in tumor-bearing hosts. However, the mechanism of this phenomenon remained unclear. We have found that incubation of Ag-specific CD8+ T cells, with peptide-loaded MDSCs, did not induce signaling downstream of TCR. However, it prevented subsequent signaling from peptide-loaded dendritic cells. Using double TCR transgenic CD8+ T cells, we have demonstrated that MDSC induced tolerance to only the peptide, which was presented by MDSCs. T cell response to the peptide specific to the other TCR was not affected. Incubation of MDSCs with Ag-specific CD8+ T cells caused nitration of the molecules on the surface of CD8+ T cells, localized to the site of physical interaction between MDSC and T cells, which involves preferentially only TCR specific for the peptide presented by MDSCs. Postincubation with MDSCs, only nitrotyrosine-positive CD8+ T cells demonstrated profound nonresponsiveness to the specific peptide, whereas nitrotyrosine-negative CD8+ T cells responded normally to that stimulation. MDSCs caused dissociation between TCR and CD3ζ molecules, disrupting TCR complexes on T cells. Thus, these data describe a novel mechanism of Ag-specific CD8+ T cell tolerance in cancer.
Vitamin D Intake and the Risk for Pancreatic Cancer in Two Cohort Studies

Vitamin D and its analogues exhibit potent antitumor effects in many tissues, including the pancreas. Normal and malignant pancreatic tissues were recently shown to express high levels of vitamin D 1-α-hydroxylase, which converts circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D to active 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D. We examined associations between dietary intake of vitamin D, calcium, and retinol and subsequent risk for pancreatic cancer. We conducted prospective studies in cohorts of 46,771 men ages 40 to 75 years as of 1986 (the Health Professionals Follow-up Study), and 75,427 women ages 38 to 65 years as of 1984 (the Nurses' Health Study), documenting incident pancreatic cancer through the year 2000. Diet was ascertained by semiquantitative food-frequency questionnaire. We identified 365 incident cases of pancreatic cancer over 16 years of follow-up. Compared with participants in the lowest category of total vitamin D intake (<150 IU/d), pooled multivariate relative risks for pancreatic cancer were 0.78 [95% confidence interval (95% CI), 0.59-1.01] for 150 to 299 IU/d, 0.57 (95% CI, 0.40-0.83) for 300 to 449 IU/d, 0.56 (95% CI, 0.36-0.87) for 450 to 599 IU/d, and 0.59 (95% CI, 0.40-0.88) for ≥600 IU/d (Ptrend = 0.01). These associations may be stronger in men than women. After adjusting for vitamin D intake, calcium and retinol intakes were not associated with pancreatic cancer risk. In two U.S. cohorts, higher intakes of vitamin D were associated with lower risks for pancreatic cancer. Our results point to a potential role for vitamin D in the pathogenesis and prevention of pancreatic cancer. (Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2006;15(9):1688–95)
Influence of COMT Gene Polymorphism on fMRI-assessed Sustained and Transient Activity during a Working Memory Task

The catechol O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene—encoding an enzyme that is essential for the degradation of dopamine (DA) in prefrontal cortex (PFC)—contains a single nucleotide polymorphism (val/met) important for cognition. According to the tonic–phasic hypothesis, individuals carrying the low-enzyme-activity allele (met) are characterized by enhanced tonic DA activity in PFC, promoting sustained cognitive representations in working memory. Val carriers have reduced tonic but enhanced phasic dopaminergic activity in subcortical regions, enhancing cognitive flexibility. We tested the tonic–phasic DA hypothesis by dissociating sustained and transient brain activity during performance on a 2-back working memory test using mixed blocked/event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants were men recruited from a random sample of the population (the Betula study) and consisted of 11 met/met and 11 val/val carriers aged 50 to 65 years, matched on age, education, and cognitive performance. There were no differences in 2-back performance between genotype groups. Met carriers displayed a greater transient medial temporal lobe response in the updating phase of working memory, whereas val carriers showed a greater sustained PFC activation in the maintenance phase. These results support the tonic–phasic theory of DA function in elucidating the specific phenotypic influence of the COMT val158met polymorphism on different components of working memory.
Trading rules on stock markets using genetic network programming with sarsa learning

In this paper, the Genetic Network Programming (GNP) for creating trading rules on stocks is described. GNP is an evolutionary computation, which represents its solutions using graph structures and has some useful features inherently. It has been clarified that GNP works well especially in dynamic environments since GNP can create quite compact programs and has an implicit memory function. In this paper, GNP is applied to creating a stock trading model. There are three important points: The first important point is to combine GNP with Sarsa Learning which is one of the reinforcement learning algorithms. Evolution-based methods evolve their programs after task execution because they must calculate fitness values, while reinforcement learning can change programs during task execution, therefore the programs can be created efficiently. The second important point is that GNP uses candlestick chart and selects appropriate technical indices to judge the buying and selling timing of stocks. The third important point is that sub-nodes are used in each node to determine appropriate actions (buying/selling) and to select appropriate stock price information depending on the situation. In the simulations, the trading model is trained using the stock prices of 16 brands in 2001, 2002 and 2003. Then the generalization ability is tested using the stock prices in 2004. From the simulation results, it is clarified that the trading rules of the proposed method obtain much higher profits than Buy&Hold method and its effectiveness has been confirmed.
Economic Inequalities and the Level of Decentralization in European Countries: Cluster Analysis

Abstract This submitted article identifies relations between the degree of decentralization and economic imbalances on the basis of a cluster (exploratory) analysis. Two indicators have been chosen for measuring economic inequalities: an indicator of dispersion of regional GDP per capita as representative of the performance imbalances within countries (it measures the economic development gap among regions in European countries); and a multidimensional inequality-adjusted human development index as representative of inequalities in the distribution of wealth in the countries. Decentralization is measured by means of a decentralization index, which contains both quantitative and qualitative components. Although groups of countries characterised by a high degree of decentralization do not necessarily show the lowest degrees of economic imbalances, it is however possible to conclude that the countries in groups with a higher degree of decentralization are among those countries with more favourable values of the economic imbalances indicators monitored. As a part of the research, two clusters of countries were identified which are identical in their degree of decentralization, but differ in the results connected with economic imbalances. The differences are caused by different institutional qualities in the two groups.
The impact of shift work on nurses' job stress, sleep quality and self-perceived health status.

AIM The aim of this study was to describe the current state of nurses' shift work in Taiwan and how it affects nurses' stress, sleep quality and self-perceived health status. BACKGROUND To enable the provision of 24-hour patient care, nurses need to work various shifts. Long-term shift work significantly affects nurses' overall physical and mental health. METHOD Nurses from four Chiayi County district hospitals in Taiwan (n = 266) participated in this cross-sectional study from August to September 2010. Demographics, work schedule forms, a stress checklist, a sleep-quality measure and a health-status measure were used to collect data. Independent t-test, one-way anova, Pearson's r, and hierarchical regression were applied for analysis. RESULTS The results showed that regardless of the amount of shift work they performed, nurses reported moderate job stress, poor sleep quality and moderate self-perceived health. The following significant relationships were observed: job stress was inversely related to sleep quality, which was directly related to self-perceived health status. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT Hospital managers need to ensure more healthy shift work scheduling in order to improve nurses' clinical performance and personal health status, thereby also improving the quality of patient care.
Hospital‐based community psychiatric service for patients with schizophrenia in Kuala Lumpur: A 1‐year follow‐up study of re‐hospitalization

Hospital‐based community psychiatric service (HCPS) is a developing intervention in Malaysia targeted for patients with severe mental illnesses (SMIs). Its effectiveness had not been systematically measured. This study aimed to assess the outcome of HCPS with respect to re‐hospitalization and factors associated with low re‐hospitalization among patients with schizophrenia in the metropolitan city of Kuala Lumpur.
Historical Role Conceptualizations of the Superintendent and their Relationship to North Carolina Low Wealth Public School District Superintendents

HARRELL, TIMMY EDWARD. Historical Role Conceptualizations of the Superintendent and Their Relationship to North Carolina Low Wealth Public School District Superintendents. (Under the direction of Dr. Lance Fusarelli). “Since the inception of the role, the demands on the superintendent have changed as a result of numerous social, political, and economic trends in our society” (Barnett & Petersen, 2005, p. 107). Several researchers agree the role of the superintendent has evolved over time (Bjork, Brunner, & Glass, 2000; Carter & Cunningham, 1997; Kowalski, McCord, Petersen, & Young, 2011; ). Kowalski (2006) contends that for us to understand the modern role of the superintendent we must first understand the history behind the position. This research study used the historical role conceptualizations of the superintendent developed by Raymond Callahan (1966) and Theodore Kowalski (2006) to compare them to what low wealth superintendents in North Carolina public schools are doing today. The researcher endeavored to discover which historical role a select group of superintendents operated from as well as if a new historical role conceptualization has emerged for this group
Programming of Poliovirus Inhibition of Deoxyribonucleic Acid Synthesis in HeLa Cells

Ackermann, W. W. (The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor), and D. Wahl. Programming of poliovirus inhibition of deoxyribonucleic acid synthesis in HeLa cells. J. Bacteriol. 92:1051–1054. 1966. —Deletion of arginine from a culture medium reduced the rate of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) synthesis in uninfected HeLa cells. The normal rate was promptly restored by addition of arginine. Deletion of arginine also prevented poliovirus from inhibiting DNA synthesis in HeLa cells. However, the inhibitory potential of the infection and the capacity of the host cell for stimulation with regard to DNA synthesis were both retained in arginine-depleted cells which were infected. Upon addition of arginine late in the infection, DNA synthesis was first stimulated and then inhibited.
Glutathione S‐Transferase M1 and T1 Gene Polymorphisms and the Outcome of Chronic Hepatitis C Virus Infection in Egyptian Patients

We analysed the distribution of GSTM1 and GSTT1 gene polymorphisms in Egyptian patients with chronic hepatitis C, and investigated their relationship to the clinical outcome of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. This study included 169 patients with chronic HCV infection and 145 healthy and matched controls.GSTM1 and GSTT1 polymorphisms were genotyped by multiplex polymerase chain reaction. Individual GSTM1 null and GSTT1 null genotypes were more frequent in patients versus control subjects [OR, 4 (95% CI, 2.5–6.4); P ˂ 0.001] and [OR, 1.7 (95% CI, 1.1–2.6); P = 0.025], respectively. The patient group showed a higher frequency of the combined GSTM1/GSTT1 double‐null genotype than the control group [OR, 1.8 (95% CI, 1.1–2.9); P = 0.016]. The distribution frequencies of the combined GSTM1/GSTT1 double‐null genotype were significantly different [OR, 0.5 (95% CI, 0.25–0.99); P = 0.049] between F0–F3 and F4. There were no significant differences between the two groups with regard to other genotypes. The combined GSTM1/GSTT1 double‐null genotype was significantly increased in Child‐Pugh C patients in comparison to Child‐Pugh A+B (P = 0.02). There was no significant difference between different classes with regard to other genotypes. In conclusion, we identified an association between the combined GSTM1/GSTT1 double‐null genotype and advanced liver fibrosis and outcome of chronic HCV infection in Egyptian patients.
Ge-Doped Defect-Core Microstructured Fiber Design by Genetic Algorithm for Residual Dispersion Compensation

A special microstructured optical fiber, which may be used in a wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) optical fiber transmission system for residual chromatic dispersion compensation, is designed and analyzed. The proposed structure is obtained by introducing a small Ge-doped core at the center of a conventional photonic crystal fiber. The behavior of the resulting geometry has been optimized by a genetic algorithm in conjunction with an efficient vectorial finite element formulation. Numerical results show that the designed photonic crystal fiber exhibits flattened negative dispersion over E + S + C + L + U wavelength bands with an average dispersion of - 212 ps ·km-1 ·nm-1.
IoT Protocols – MQTT versus CoAP

The usage of Internet of Things has increased in the recent years allowing a new way of connecting devices together. Many transactions happen over the IoT calling for protocols to ensure the efficiency and management of the communication traffic. This paper examines 2 particular protocols, Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) and Constrained application protocol (CoAP). The main differences between MQTT and CoAP that MQTT runs over TCP and CoAP runs over UDP. MQTT uses three level of QoS to ensure the message delivery while CoAP uses 4 types of transmission attempts which are confirmable, non-confirmable, acknowledgment, and rest. Through a set of experiments, we show that MQTT is more accurate when ensuring packet delivery. However, CoAP is better when it comes to performance when sending a limited number of messages.
Kinematic analysis and simulation of active-caster robotic drive with ball transmission (ACROBAT-S)

Abstract In this study, a new type of active-caster with a single ball transmission (ACROBAT-S) was proposed. The proposed ball transmission involved a novel mechanism that realized to control the active-caster for propelling robotic platforms. The combined power from two motors rotated a single ball in two dimensions. Additionally, the combined power was simultaneously decomposed to the wheel shaft and steering shaft of an active-caster in an appropriate ratio. The transmission design enabled an omnidirectional robot with three active-casters to control its 3D motion by three motors with no redundancy. The new concept of ACROBAT-S offers several advantages as compared to the previous ACROBAT design as the number of balls was reduced from two to one, and therefore the number of friction drives between a ball and rollers or a ball and another ball was also reduced from five to three. These features could contribute to simplifying the mechanism design and to reduce transmission slippages and energy losses. The design concept was verified by deriving and analyzing the kinematics of a single ball transmission mechanism and a three-wheeled omnidirectional mobile robot. Furthermore, the motions of ACROBAT-S and that of an omnidirectional robot were verified using computer simulations. The results confirmed that the proposed single ball transmission could be applied to an omnidirectional wheel mechanism to realize non-redundant omnidirectional motions.
Surgery is cost-effective treatment for young patients with vestibular schwannomas: decision tree modeling of surgery, radiation, and observation.

OBJECT Vestibular schwannomas (VSs) are managed in 3 ways: observation ("wait and scan"); Gamma Knife surgery (GKS); or microsurgery. Whereas there is considerable literature regarding which management approach is superior, there are only a few studies addressing the cost of treating VSs, and there are no cost-utility analyses in the US to date. METHODS In this study, the authors used the University of California at San Francisco medical record and hospital accounting databases to determine total hospital charges and costs for 33 patients who underwent open surgery, 42 patients who had GKS, and 12 patients who were observed between 2010 and 2013. The authors then performed decision-tree analysis to determine which treatment paradigm produces the highest quality-adjusted life years and to calculate the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio, depending on the patient's age at VS diagnosis. RESULTS The average total hospital cost over a 3-year period for surgically treated patients was $80,074 (± $49,678) versus $9737 (± $5522) for patients receiving radiosurgery and $1746 (± $2792) for patients who were observed. When modeling the most debilitating symptoms and worst outcomes of VSs (vertigo and death) at different ages at diagnosis, radiation is dominant to observation at all ages up to 70 years. Surgery is cost-effective when compared with radiation (incremental cost-effectiveness ratio < $150,000) at younger ages at diagnosis (< 45 years old). CONCLUSIONS In this model, surgery is a cost-effective alternative to radiation when VS is diagnosed in patients at < 45 years. For patients ≥ 45 years, radiation is the most cost-effective treatment option.
Early diagnosis of thyrotoxic periodic paralysis: Spot urine calcium to phosphate ratio*

Objectives:To identify a clinically reliable index of thyrotoxic periodic paralysis (TPP), a life-threatening emergency with unique and effective therapies. Design:Diagnostic study. Setting:University teaching hospital. Patients:Fifty-three consecutive patients with hypokalemic paralysis during a 3-yr period and 30 thyrotoxic patients without paralysis as the thyrotoxic control group. Interventions:For patients with hypokalemic paralysis, blood and second-void spot urine samples were obtained and measured by routine laboratory prior to therapy. For the thyrotoxic control group, blood and spot urine were collected when they visited outpatient clinics. Measurements and Main Results:Twenty-nine patients fulfilled the criteria for TPP. Compared with the thyrotoxic control group, the TPP group had significant decreases in plasma potassium (K+) and phosphate concentrations associated with very low urine K+ and phosphate excretion. Compared with the non-TPP group, the TPP group had significantly lower plasma creatinine and phosphate levels, a significantly higher urine calcium to creatinine ratio (0.25 ± 0.12 vs. 0.08 ± 0.07 mg/mg, p < .001), and a significantly lower urine phosphate to creatinine ratio (0.08 ± 0.05 vs. 0.31 ± 0.23 mg/mg, p < .001). The urine calcium to phosphate ratio had greater discriminatory power between TPP and non-TPP hypokalemic paralysis (4.1 ± 2.3 vs. 0.5 ± 0.6 mg/mg, p < .001). Using a urine calcium to phosphate ratio cutoff value of 1.7 mg/mg, sensitivity and specificity for TPP were 100% and 96%, respectively. Conclusions:Hypercalciuria and hypophosphaturia are characteristic features of TPP.