Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differential diagnosis of dental fluorosis made by undergraduate dental students

ABSTRACT Objective To check knowledge of undergraduate dental students to make diagnosis of dental fluorosis with varying degrees of severity and choose its appropriate treatment. Methods Data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire addressing knowledge of undergraduates based on ten images of mouths presenting enamel changes. Results Only three images were correctly diagnosed by most undergraduates; the major difficulty was in establishing dental fluorosis severity degree. Conclusion Despite much information about fluorosis conveyed during the Dentistry training, as defined in the course syllabus, a significant part of the students was not able to differentiate it from other lesions; they did not demonstrate expertise as to defining severity of fluorosis and indications for treatment, and could not make the correct diagnosis of enamel surface changes.
Corporate culture and financial performance: an empirical test of a UK retailer

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess claims that culture is a significant factor in accounting for corporate financial performance (defined as sales intensity (SI)) in the retail sector at store level. The paper provides a critical analysis of the “strong culture‐good performance” thesis.Design/methodology/approach – Company data were used which included the annual employee survey (at store level), store characteristics data, and store sales data (SI per square foot). Multiple regression was used to predict SI. Stepwise cross‐lagged regression analysis was used to infer cause and effect linkages.Findings – Contrary to the strong culture thesis, the results show that a physical factor, store format, is the most important element in explaining SI. Employee morale is the most significant human cultural variable, followed by employee perception of manageable workloads. Interestingly, whilst job satisfaction is a significant predictor, it is in a negative direction. The more employees are satisfied.
The accuracy of the out-of-field dose calculations using a model based algorithm in a commercial treatment planning system

The out-of-field dose can be clinically important as it relates to the dose of the organ-at-risk, although the accuracy of its calculation in commercial radiotherapy treatment planning systems (TPSs) receives less attention. This study evaluates the uncertainties of out-of-field dose calculated with a model based dose calculation algorithm, anisotropic analytical algorithm (AAA), implemented in a commercial radiotherapy TPS, Varian Eclipse V10, by using Monte Carlo (MC) simulations, in which the entire accelerator head is modeled including the multi-leaf collimators. The MC calculated out-of-field doses were validated by experimental measurements. The dose calculations were performed in a water phantom as well as CT based patient geometries and both static and highly modulated intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) fields were evaluated. We compared the calculated out-of-field doses, defined as lower than 5% of the prescription dose, in four H&N cancer patients and two lung cancer patients treated with volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) and IMRT techniques. The results show that the discrepancy of calculated out-of-field dose profiles between AAA and the MC depends on the depth and is generally less than 1% for in water phantom comparisons and in CT based patient dose calculations for static field and IMRT. In cases of VMAT plans, the difference between AAA and MC is <0.5%. The clinical impact resulting from the error on the calculated organ doses were analyzed by using dose-volume histograms. Although the AAA algorithm significantly underestimated the out-of-field doses, the clinical impact on the calculated organ doses in out-of-field regions may not be significant in practice due to very low out-of-field doses relative to the target dose.
UNPAID CROWD COMPLEMENTORS : THE PLATFORM NETWORK EFFECT MIRAGE

Platforms have evolved beyond just being organized as multi-sided markets with complementors selling to users. Complementors are often unpaid, working outside of a price system and driven by heterogeneous sources of motivation—which should affect how they respond to platform growth. Does reliance on network effects and strategies to attract large numbers of complementors remain advisable in such contexts? We test hypotheses related to these issues using data from 85 online multi-player game platforms with unpaid complementors. We find that complementor development responds to platform growth even without sales incentives, but that attracting complementors has a net zero effect on on-going development and fails to stimulate network effects. We discuss conditions under which a strategy of using unpaid crowd complementors remains advantageous. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A Comparative Performance Analysis of Foreign and Domestic Manufacturing Companies in Turkey

We analyze whether foreign-owned firms perform better financially than domestically-owned firms in manufacturing sector in Turkey. The impacts of several firm indicators like age, size, assets, R&D, expenses, and firm risks on the four corporate performance measures, ROE, TFP, BEP and ROA are investigated by a panel data model. We focus on effects of foreign ownership on firm performance. Although there is no much study on this issue in Turkey, contrary to the findings of former studies, our results reveal that there is no significant difference between the performances of foreign-owned and domestically-owned firms.
Effectiveness of advertising formats in television

Advertising in television is developing beyond traditional commercial breaks. This trend requires considering how advertising and the content of television programmes can be used together with business aims. This study compares, in a real environment, the cognitive, affective and behavioural effects of a non-conventional advertising format, telepromotion, to those of a spot (conventional television commercial) on television audiences. Telepromotion obtained much higher levels of recall than spots. However, the quality of recall achieved by telepromotion was inferior to that obtained by spots. The results also show that telepromotion generates a higher recall, this may be directly related to a negative rating by the target audience.
Aspiration Cytology of Ovarian Cystic Masses: Histologic Correlation and Review of the Literature

Objective: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of cytologic evaluation of ovarian cystic masses. Study Design: Sixty-seven ovarian cystic masses with fine needle aspiration cytology and concurrent or subsequent cystectomy/oophorectomy with histology were examined. Correlations with malignancy were made with 4 parameters: serum CA-125, radiographic size and architecture, and cytology. Results: Histologic examination of the 67 cases revealed 10 malignancies including 3 primary ovarian carcinomas, 2 metastatic neoplasms, and 5 borderline tumors. In the 10 malignant cases, the cytologic diagnoses were that of benign (n = 2), benign but non-diagnostic/paucicellular (n = 3), and atypical/malignant (n = 5), giving an overall sensitivity for cytology of 50%. However, there were no false positives (specificity of 100%). Reasons for the low sensitivity of cytology were the paucicellular nature of aspirate (n = 3), focality of ovarian borderline tumors (n = 5), and surface involvement by metastatic cancer (n = 2). The 4 parameters were independent of one another and none proved to have significant correlation with malignancy (p > 0.05). Thirty-nine percent of the aspirates had low cellularity (6% non-diagnostic/33% pauci-cellular). Conclusions: Cytology was the only parameter with 100% specificity and 100% positive predictive value. However, paucicellular specimens are a common problem in aspiration from this site.
Technical and social bonds within business-to-business relationships

Most research about relationships and networks concentrates on social bonds such as trust and commitment. Little research considers technical bonds and how they interact with social bonds within a relationship. Thus this research investigates how technical bonds of information technology link with social bonds in the relationship between two organisations in a business system, in particular, between a franchisor and franchisees within a franchise system. First, a framework of the structure of a relationship between business alliance partners was synthesised from the business‐to‐business literature. Then Australian franchisors were surveyed about the effects of their investments in information technology upon their franchisor‐franchisee relationship. Structural equation modelling techniques were used to analyse the survey data. The results provided support for the framework, with the franchisor’s increased technical competence from information technology improving the social bonds in a relationship but those bonds being secondary to further technical investment. An implication for managers is that investments in information technology operate through the social bonds within their business.
A RE-EXAMINATION OF THE IMPACT OF EXPENSES ON THE PERFORMANCE OF ACTIVELY MANAGED EQUITY MUTUAL FUNDS

According to the Investment Company Institute, average mutual fund expense ratios declined sixty percent in recent years. We evaluate the performance of domestic equity mutual funds to determine whether this decline in expense ratios had a measurable impact on fund performance. We find that most mutual funds in our sample track the SP a result that is remarkably different from previously documented findings. Our results show that both expense ratio and portfolio turnover are negatively associated with investment performance. The decline in fund expenses does not appear to be significantly beneficial to fund investors.
Inventory and Corporate Risk Management

We calibrate a dynamic structural model to examine the role of inventory in risk management, alongside derivatives and cash holdings. We find that inventory management creates more value as an operational hedge than as a reserve of liquidity. In addition, technological flexibility reduces the contribution to risk management of inventory, making derivatives and cash holdings more valuable in the presence of flexible production technologies. We use the model to analyze whether a risk management motive, besides technological and organizational changes, can explain the negative correlation between cash holdings and storage for U.S. corporations. Procyclicality of inventory returns, together with external finance costs and higher cash flow risk, explains the negative correlation between inventory and cash ratios, in the cross section of firms in the same industry.
Selecting and Simplifying: Rater Performance and Behavior When Considering Multiple Competencies

Abstract Theory: Assessment of clinical competence is a complex cognitive task with many mental demands often imposed on raters unintentionally. We were interested in whether this burden might contribute to well-described limitations in assessment judgments. In this study we examine the effect on indicators of rating quality of asking raters to (a) consider multiple competencies and (b) attend to multiple issues. In addition, we explored the cognitive strategies raters engage when asked to consider multiple competencies simultaneously. Hypotheses: We hypothesized that indications of rating quality (e.g., interrater reliability) would decline as the number of dimensions raters are expected to consider increases. Method: Experienced faculty examiners rated prerecorded clinical performances within a 2 (number of dimensions) × 2 (presence of distracting task) × 3 (number of videos) factorial design. Half of the participants were asked to rate 7 dimensions of performance (7D), and half were asked to rate only 2 (2D). The second factor involved the requirement (or lack thereof) to rate the performance of actors participating in the simulation. We calculated the interrater reliability of the scores assigned and counted the number of relevant behaviors participants identified as informing their ratings. Second, we analyzed data from semistructured posttask interviews to explore the rater strategies associated with rating under conditions designed to broaden raters' focus. Results: Generalizability analyses revealed that the 2D group achieved higher interrater reliability relative to the 7D group (G = .56 and .42, respectively, when the average of 10 raters is calculated). The requirement to complete an additional rating task did not have an effect. Using the 2 dimensions common to both groups, an analysis of variance revealed that participants who were asked to rate only 2 dimensions identified more behaviors of relevance to the focal dimensions than those asked to rate 7 dimensions: procedural skill = 36.2%, 95% confidence interval (CI) [32.5, 40.0] versus 23.5%, 95% CI [20.8, 26.3], respectively; history gathering = 38.6%, 95% CI [33.5, 42.9] versus 24.0%, 95% CI [21.1, 26.9], respectively; ps < . 05. During posttask interviews, raters identified many sources of cognitive load and idiosyncratic cognitive strategies used to reduce cognitive load during the rating task. Conclusions: As intrinsic rating demands increase, indicators of rating quality decline. The strategies that raters engage when asked to rate many dimensions simultaneously are varied and appear to yield idiosyncratic efforts to reduce cognitive effort, which may affect the degree to which raters make judgments based on comparable information.
Usage of different Web Impact Factors for Ranking Australian Universities

This study describes how search engines (SE) can be employed for automated, efficient data gathering for Webometric studies using well defined query specfic URLs in SE (predictable URLs). It then compares the usage of staff-related Web Impact Factors (WIFs) to web impact factors for a ranking of Australian universities, showing that rankings based on staff-related WIFs correlate much better with an established ranking from the Melbourne Institute than commonly used WIFs. In fact WIFs do not correlate with the Melbourne ranking at all. It also compares WIF data for Australian Universities provided by Smith [1] for a longitudinal comparison of the WIF of Australian Universities over the last decade. It shows that size-dependent WIF values declined for most Australian universities over the last ten years, while staff- dependent WIFs shows a riding trend.
The build up of technetium in breast milk following the administration of 99Tc(m)O4 labelled macroaggregated albumin.

When 99TcmO4 labelled macroaggregated albumin is administered to a lactating mother it may be necessary to delay the resumption of feeding. This can cause various problems including the discomfort experienced by the mother and a possible reaction by the child. The practice in Aberdeen, in the few cases experienced, has been to recommend a delay of 36 hours following an administered dose of 500 μCi before feeding is resumed.
Discovering Perceptions in Online Social Media: A Probabilistic Approach

People across the world habitually turn to online social media to share their experiences, thoughts, ideas, and opinions as they go about their daily lives. These posts collectively contain a wealth of insights into how masses perceive their surroundings. Therefore, extracting people's perceptions from social media posts can provide valuable information about pertinent issues such as public transportation, emergency conditions, and even reactions to political actions or other activities. This paper proposes a novel approach to extract such perceptions from a corpus of social media posts originating from a given broad geographical region. The approach divides the broad region into a number of sub-regions, and trains language models over social media conversations within these sub-regions. Using Bayesian and geo-smoothing methods, the ensemble of language models can be queried with phrases embodying a perception. Discrete and continuous visualization methods represent the extent to which social media posts within the sub-regions express the query. The capabilities of the perception mining approach are illustrated using transportation-themed scenarios.
Marketing implications of consolidation in the hotel industry

Abstract This article is a study of the trends that are occurring in relation to the merger, acquisition and affiliation of different hotel groups. It examines the resulting benefit of consolidation for the larger organizations, especially the public companies operating in the UK. Many of these benefits are explained in relation to each component of the marketing mix.
Cellular evidence for selfish spermatogonial selection in aged human testes

Owing to a recent trend for delayed paternity, the genomic integrity of spermatozoa of older men has become a focus of increased interest. Older fathers are at higher risk for their children to be born with several monogenic conditions collectively termed paternal age effect (PAE) disorders, which include achondroplasia, Apert syndrome and Costello syndrome. These disorders are caused by specific mutations originating almost exclusively from the male germline, in genes encoding components of the tyrosine kinase receptor/RAS/MAPK signalling pathway. These particular mutations, occurring randomly during mitotic divisions of spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs), are predicted to confer a selective/growth advantage on the mutant SSC. This selective advantage leads to a clonal expansion of the mutant cells over time, which generates mutant spermatozoa at levels significantly above the background mutation rate. This phenomenon, termed selfish spermatogonial selection, is likely to occur in all men. In rare cases, probably because of additional mutational events, selfish spermatogonial selection may lead to spermatocytic seminoma. The studies that initially predicted the clonal nature of selfish spermatogonial selection were based on DNA analysis, rather than the visualization of mutant clones in intact testes. In a recent study that aimed to identify these clones directly, we stained serial sections of fixed testes for expression of melanoma antigen family A4 (MAGEA4), a marker of spermatogonia. A subset of seminiferous tubules with an appearance and distribution compatible with the predicted mutant clones were identified. In these tubules, termed ‘immunopositive tubules’, there is an increased density of spermatogonia positive for markers related to selfish selection (FGFR3) and SSC self‐renewal (phosphorylated AKT). Here we detail the properties of the immunopositive tubules and how they relate to the predicted mutant clones, as well as discussing the utility of identifying the potential cellular source of PAE mutations.
Corporate Governance and Performance: An Indexing Approach Using the Stochastic Frontier Analysis

In this paper, we study the association between firms' specific characteristics and performance for a sample of 320 American firms using a governance efficiency index, calculated by the Stochastic Frontier Analysis. The use of a latent classes in the specification of the model, allowed to detect two groups of firms according to their specific characteristics as: the firm size, the leverage, the dividend yield and the return on equity (ROE). The results of affectation equation show that the probability to be in the second group (the most perform) is more important when the firm size, the dividend yield and the ROE are high, while a high leverage level decreases the chance to be in the first group (the less perform).
Overview of Disc Brakes and Related Phenomena - A Review

Disc brakes have evolved over time to be a reliable method of decelerating and stopping a vehicle. There have been different designs of disc brake systems for different applications. This review gives a detailed description of different geometries of the components and the materials used in a disc brake system. In spite of all the improvements, there are still many operational issues related to disc brakes that need to be understood in greater detail and resolved. There has been a lot of research going on about these issues and at the same time different methods are being proposed to eliminate or reduce them. There has also been intensive fundamental research going on about the evolution of the tribological interface of the disc-pad system. One major purpose of the present paper is to give a comprehensive overview of all such developments.
The importance of childhood trauma and childhood life events for chronicity of depression in adults.

BACKGROUND Childhood trauma is linked to adult depression and might be a risk factor for a more chronic course of depression. However, the link between childhood trauma and chronicity of depression has not been investigated using a large and representative sample in which other depression characteristics, such as severity, age at onset, and comorbid psychopathology, were taken into account. METHOD Baseline data, collected during 2004 through 2007, were drawn from the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA). Participants had a current DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD) and were recruited from the community, primary care settings, and specialized mental health care facilities (N = 1230). Relationships between both childhood trauma and childhood life events and chronicity of depression were examined using multiple logistic regression models. Chronicity of depression was defined as being depressed for 24 months or more in the past 4 years. RESULTS Chronicity of depression was associated with a significantly higher prevalence of childhood trauma but was not associated with childhood life events. We found the strongest association for those with the highest score on a cumulative index summarizing frequency of childhood trauma (OR = 3.26; 95% CI = 1.86 to 5.72, p < .001). After controlling for comorbid anxiety disorders, severity of depressive symptoms, and age at onset of depression, we found that the association between childhood trauma index and chronicity of depression remained significant (OR = 2.06; 95% CI = 1.13 to 3.73, p = .02). CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that multiple childhood traumas can be seen as an independent determinant of chronicity of depression. For treatment of depressed patients, it is therefore important to detect the presence of childhood trauma.