Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effects of silicone oil removal. Silicone Study Report 6.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the advisability of removing silicone oil from eyes after surgery for severe (with a classification of at least C-3) proliferative vitreoretinopathy. DESIGN Subgroup analysis of the Silicone Study, a randomized, multicentered, surgical trial. SETTING Community- and university-based clinics. PATIENTS Two hundred twenty-two eyes with severe proliferative vitreoretinopathy followed up in the Silicone Study. INTERVENTIONS Vitrectomy for proliferative vitreoretinopathy with silicone oil as the intraocular tamponade. OUTCOME MEASURES Changes in visual acuity, recurrent retinal detachment, and incidence of complications. RESULTS Ninety-nine (45%) of 222 eyes had surgery for silicone oil removal (oil-removed eyes). Compared with the eyes that did not undergo silicone oil removal (oil-retained eyes) evaluated at a comparable time after oil injection, oil-removed eyes at the examination prior to oil removal were more likely to be attached (85% vs 40%; P < .0001), have a visual acuity of 5/200 or greater (63% vs 35%; P < .0001), and not be hypotonous (5% vs 22%; P < .001). There was no association between the length of oil retention and incidence of recurrent retinal detachment after oil removal. Eyes with attached retinas at the time of oil removal generally improved in visual acuity at the last follow-up examination (P < .0001), which was not evident in eyes with detached retinas at the time of oil removal. In a matched-pair cohort analysis comparing both sets of eyes, there was an increased risk for recurrent retinal detachment at the last follow-up examination in the oil-removed eyes (odds ratio [OR], 2.1; P = .09). However, overall visual acuity improved for oil-removed eyes in 19 (29%) of 66 pairs and for oil-retained eyes in one (2%) of 66 pairs (OR, 19.0; P < .0001). Although nonsignificant, incidence rates of keratopathy (OR, 0.5) and hypotony (OR, 0.5) were lower in oil-removed eyes. CONCLUSION Removal of silicone oil in anatomically successful eyes significantly increases the likelihood of improved visual acuity with a slight increase in the likelihood of recurrent retinal redetachment. There was a trend for a reduction in the incidence of complications in the oil-removed eyes.
Spontaneous Rereading Within Sentences: Eye Movement Control and Visual Sampling

Three experiments examine the role of previously read text in sentence comprehension and the control of eye movements during spontaneous rereading. Spontaneous rereading begins with a regressive saccade and involves reinspection of previously read text. All 3 experiments employed the gaze-contingent change technique to modulate the availability of previously read text. In Experiment 1, previously read text was permanently masked either immediately to the left of the fixated word (beyond wordn) or more than 1 word to the left (beyond wordn-1). The results of Experiment 1 indicate that the availability of the word immediately to the left (wordn-1) is important for comprehension. Experiments 2 and 3 further explored the role of previously read text beyond wordn-1. In these studies, text beyond wordn-1 was replaced, retaining only word length information, or word length and shape information. Following a regression back within a sentence, meaningful text either reappeared or remained unavailable during rereading. The experiments show that the visual format of text beyond wordn-1 (the parafoveal postview) is important for triggering regressions. The results also indicate that, as least for more complex sentences, the availability of meaningful text is important in driving eye movement control during rereading.
Prevalence and sport‐related predictors of disturbed eating attitudes and behaviors: Moderating effects of sex and age

Very few studies examined the prevalence and sport‐related predictors of disturbed eating attitudes and behaviors (DEABs) among adolescents involved in sport practice, and their results are mixed and inconclusive. These inconsistencies are most likely due to their methodological heterogeneity and to the fact that none of these studies took into consideration the potentially relevant characteristics of the sport practice context. This study attempts to answer this limitation among French adolescents not involved or involved in various sports contexts defined based on their organization, leanness‐centration, and competitive level. Participants were 335 adolescents involved in sport practice, and 435 adolescents not involved in any form of regular sport practice. The DEABs were measured using the Eating Attitudes Test‐26. Global results do not showed any significant association between the status of the participants and DEAB. However, these results drastically changed when we considered the potential moderating role of sex and age on these relations. Indeed, sports involvement in general, and involvement in leanness and competitive sports were found to exert sex‐ and age‐differentiated effects on the risks of presenting clinically significant levels of DEAB. This study suggests the importance of monitoring, preventive, and early intervention mechanisms within the context of practice, particularly for adolescent girls.
NSIM-ACE: An interconnection network simulator for evaluating remote direct memory access

Network simulation is an important technique for designing interconnection networks and communication libraries. Also network simulations are useful for the analysis of internal communication behavior in parallel applications. This paper introduces a new interconnection network simulator NSIM-ACE. This simulator enables us to evaluate RDMA directly while existing simulators do not have such capability. NSIM-ACE also provides a similar user-interface to RDMA-based parallel programs for easy use. The experimental evaluation indicates that the simulation accuracy is sufficient to compare performance of some RDMA-based algorithms and the simulator is capable of predicting performance scalability for non-extinct networks.
Are Institutions Conducive to Better Regulatory Environment in Infrastructure?

This empirical research tests the hypothesis that the institutional factors are important for achieving regulatory environment in infrastructure that is conducive to increased investment and output in a developing country such as Bangladesh. Data is obtained from ICRG, WGI and infrastructure regulation indicators from OECD database as well as from a set of uniquely reconstructed infrastructure regulatory indicators for energy, telecommunications, transport for Bangladesh for the period from 1975 to 2013 to exactly mirror the scope and depth of OECD dataset and to enable comparison. The results confirm that institutional factors such as accountability, corruption, efficiency, property rights, bureaucratic quality are conducive to better regulatory environment and positively affect infrastructure regulation in both OECD countries and in a developing country such as Bangladesh.
Assessment of Residential Battery Systems (RBS): Profitability, Perceived Value Proposition, and Potential Business Models

The boost of electricity generation from fluctuating renewable sources comes with the challenge of how to cope with intermittence. Energy storage with batteries could be one solution. The German government has launched a program to incentivize battery installations in conjunction with roof-top PV (photovoltaics) for home owners. This segment of “residential battery systems” (RBS), with capacities typically between 4 and 15 kWh, may grow rapidly over the next few years. This study investigates the value proposition of RBS to customers. For the case of RBS in Germany, research has been conducted in three independent parts: model-based analysis of the battery system’s expected profitability, empirical study of customer expectations and perceived value proposition, and modelbased analysis of technology acceptance. Finally, potential business models around RBS have been evaluated based on a small-scale field test together with two utilities. A brief taxonomy of potential international markets for RBS has been also derived. The authors conclude that RBS will not become cost-efficient in the foreseeable future. Under very favorable circumstances (rising electricity prices, decreasing feed-in tariffs, strong economy of scale for batteries), RBS may eventually become costefficient. However, from a marketing point of view, RBS appear to be a “win-win” for home owners – as a potentially profitable way of optimizing residential electricity consumption, and as a tool which provides the reassurance of being “self-sufficient”. Other markets outside Germany, e.g. off-grid applications, may be even more promising for RBS.
The aging thyroid.

I. Introduction THE number and proportion of elderly people are steadily growing in western societies as a consequence of increased life expectancy and reduced birth rate. This phenomenon has important social, economical, and public health implications and has generated a number of studies aimed at clarifying the basis of the physiological and pathological aspects of aging. In this context, endocrine function in the elderly has been the object of particular attention (1–9). An important concept derived from these studies is that while the equilibrium concentrations of the principal hormones are substantially normal in most healthy elderly, with advancing age there are significant alterations in hormone production, metabolism, and action, with consequent achievement of new equilibria. As proposed by Mooradian et al. (4), aging may be defined as a time of reduced adaptability to metabolic perturbation. It has been repeatedly suggested that some of these changes may play a role in the pathophysiology of sene.
A Deep Learning Approach to the Prediction of Short-term Traffic Accident Risk

With the rapid development of urbanization, the boom of vehicle numbers has resulted in serious traffic accidents, which led to casualties and huge economic losses. The ability to predict the risk of traffic accident is important in the prevention of the occurrence of accidents and to reduce the damages caused by accidents in a proactive way. However, traffic accident risk prediction with high spatiotemporal resolution is difficult, mainly due to the complex traffic environment, human behavior, and lack of real-time traffic-related data. In this study, we collected heterogeneous traffic-related data, including traffic accident, traffic flow, weather condition and air pollution from the same city; proposed a deep learning model based on recurrent neural network toward a prediction of traffic accident risk. The predictive accident risk can be potential applied to the traffic accident warning system. We ranked the predictive power of various factors considered in our model through the method of Granger causality analysis, and established the order of predictive power as traffic flow > traffic accident > geographical position >> weather + air quality + holiday + time period, which indicate that traffic flow is the most essential factor for the occurrence of traffic accidents. The proposed method can be integrated into an intelligent traffic control system toward a more reasonable traffic prediction and command organization.
The effects of sex steroid hormones upon longevity in rats.

Summary. Eleven groups of fifty rats each were kept under uniform conditions of management and their life-spans under different treatments were compared. Females lived longer than males, while ovariectomy tended to shorten the life-span of females and castration to lengthen that of males. Implantation of gonadectomized rats with oestradiol benzoate did not prolong the life-span of the females but it did tend to prolong that ofmales. Implantation of gonadectomized rats with testosterone propionate tended to shorten the average life-span ofboth sexes. Unbred females outlived bred ones, on the average, but the difference was not significant at the 5% level. Late initial breeding appeared to be more harmful than breeding for the first time at the usual age for laboratory rats. Light breeding had little or no effect upon the average longevity of males. These conclusions are tentative. The results are consistent but they mostly lack acceptable statistical significance. The most significant result statistically was that rats exposed to their own or implanted oestrogens had a longer average life-span than did those exposed to their own or to implanted testosterone.
Exploring the role of motivational interviewing in adolescent patient‐provider communication about type 1 diabetes

Adolescents with type 1 diabetes (T1D) frequently experience deterioration in glycemic control. Providers have unique opportunities to address diabetes self‐management, yet little is known about the most effective way to communicate with adolescents. This investigation used a motivational interviewing (MI) framework to characterize naturally‐occurring adolescent patient‐provider communication in medical encounters and examined relations between adolescent patient‐provider communication and (a) T1D self‐management and (b) glycemic control (hemoglobin A1c [HbA1c]).
Tumour necrosis factor-a polymorphism and the HLA-Cw * 0602 allele in psoriatic arthritis

Objectives. To investigate polymorphisms in the genes for tumour necrosis factor a (TNFA), interleukin 10 (IL10) and tumour necrosis factor receptor II (TNFRII ) in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) and their relationship to the HLA-Cw*0602 allele and to the ages at onset of psoriasis and arthritis and the pattern of joint involvement. Methods. One hundred and twenty-four well-characterized patients with PsA were studied. Controls were 101 cadaveric organ donors. All were genotyped for single-nucleotide polymorphisms in TNFA (positions 2308, 2238, + 488), IL10 (21082, 2819, 2592) and in the 39-untranslated region of TNFRII (+1663, +1668, +1690). The HLA-Cw*0602 allele was detected by polymerase chain reaction-based techniques. The frequencies of the respective variants were compared between patients and controls and in relation to the ages at onset of psoriasis and arthritis, to clinical subsets of the disease and to the presence of erosions. Results. HLA-Cw*0602 was significantly increased in frequency in PsA (40 vs 26%; P< 0.05) and was associated with younger age of onset of psoriasis (P< 0.05). There was no significant increase in any of the polymorphisms studied within TNFA, IL10 or TNFRII in the total PsA group. Although the frequency of TNFA allele 2238A was not increased in the total PsA group or in patients with a younger age of onset of psoriasis, TNFA allele 2238A was absent in the spondyloarthritis group and increased in frequency in patients with peripheral polyarthritis. However, these latter findings could be explained by linkage disequilibrium as all TNFA 2238A alleles (23u23) in patients with PsA were HLA-Cw*0602-positive (P< 0.0001). Conclusions. An association between young age of onset of psoriasis and HLA-Cw*0602 is confirmed in patients with PsA. The uncommon TNFA 2238A allele is strongly linked to HLA-Cw*0602 and as such is associated with the development of peripheral polyarthritis rather than spondylitis. Further investigation of possible HLA-Cw*0602 linked genes in PsA
Effects of long and short hemodialysis on endothelial function: a short-term study.

BACKGROUND Endothelial dysfunction is common in end-stage renal disease and may contribute to the development of both hypertension and atherosclerosis. Long-slow hemodialysis (HD) has been associated with superior blood pressure control and fewer cardiovascular complications. We hypothesized that long dialysis times would improve endothelial function compared with shorter dialysis times. METHOD Eight long-term hemodialysis patients, not on antihypertensive drugs and with no evidence of vascular disease, were studied in a three-way randomized crossover-controlled trial. Each received, for one week and in randomized sequence, four hours of HD (SD), eight hours of HD, and eight hours of HD using a smaller dialyzer and slower blood pump. The same post-dialysis target weights were used with each treatment. On the third day of each treatment endothelium-dependent (flow mediated) and independent glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) induced vasodilation were measured by forearm strain-gauge plethysmography, and von Willebrand (vW) antigen, plasma homocysteine (tHcy) and neurohormones were measured pre- and post-dialysis. RESULTS Despite achieving target post-dialysis weights with all treatments, pre-dialysis weight tended higher on SD. Endothelial dependent vasodilation increased after all HD treatments but did not differ between them. Adrenomedullin, N-terminal brain natriuretic peptide and vW antigen increased similarly across all HD whereas atrial and C-type natriuretic peptide, and endothelin-1 decreased across dialysis and were higher with SD. Pre-dialysis plasma tHcy concentrations were 13% higher during SD treatment. CONCLUSION Hemodialysis improved endothelial-dependent vasodilation but the effect was similar with all three HD treatments. Improved endothelial function might result in part from altered local hormone production (endothelin-1 and adrenomedullin). These data suggest that increasing dialysis time is unlikely, in the short-term, to significantly improve endothelial function in patients with end-stage renal disease, but longer term studies are needed.
Molecular mechanisms for apigenin‐induced cell‐cycle arrest and apoptosis of hormone refractory human prostate carcinoma DU145 cells

Development of effective agents for treatment of hormone‐refractory prostate cancer has become a national medical priority. We have reported recently that apigenin (4′,5,7‐trihydroxyflavone), found in many common fruits and vegetables, has shown remarkable effects in inhibiting cell growth and inducing apoptosis in many human prostate carcinoma cells. Here we demonstrate the molecular mechanism of inhibitory action of apigenin on androgen‐refractory human prostate carcinoma DU145 cells that have mutations in the tumor suppressor gene p53 and pRb. Treatment of cells with apigenin resulted in a dose‐ and time‐dependent inhibition of growth, colony formation, and G1 phase arrest of the cell cycle. This effect was associated with a marked decrease in the protein expression of cyclin D1, D2, and E and their activating partner, cyclin‐dependent kinase (cdk)2, 4, and 6, with concomitant upregulation of WAF1/p21, KIP1/p27, INK4a/p16, and INK4c/p18. The induction of WAF1/p21 and its growth inhibitory effects by apigenin appears to be independent of p53 and pRb status of these cells. Apigenin treatment also resulted in alteration in Bax/Bcl2 ratio in favor of apoptosis, which was associated with the release of cytochrome c and induction of apoptotic protease‐activating factor‐1 (Apaf‐1). This effect was found to result in a significant increase in cleaved fragments of caspase‐9, ‐3, and poly(ADP‐ribose) polymerase (PARP). Further, apigenin treatment resulted in downmodulation of the constitutive expression of nuclear factor‐kappaB (NF‐κB)/p65 and NF‐κB/p50 in the nuclear fraction that correlated with an increase in the expression of IkappaB‐alpha (IκBα) in the cytosol. Taken together, we concluded that molecular mechanisms during apigenin‐mediated growth inhibition and induction of apoptosis in DU145 cells was due to (1) modulation in cell‐cycle machinery, (2) disruption of mitochondrial function, and (3) NF‐κB inhibition. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Collusion, Managerial Incentives and Antitrust Fines

Based on a duopoly price competition model, this paper argues that collusion on managerial incentive compensations may have the equivalent effects to collusion on prices. This paper also provides an analysis of the effect of different antitrust fines regimes in the context of a game between two companies each composed of two-level of decision making (the board of directors and the sales manager). The contribution of this paper is two-fold: it identifies" backstage arrangements" that may be used by companies in order to achieve monopoly pricing outcome without entering into explicit price-fixing practices. It also highlights the inefficiency of fining regimes based on sales when companies have a multi-layer decision-making structure
Analisis Pengaruh Struktur Kepemilikan Perusahaan terhadap Biaya Audit

The purpose of this study is to observe the relationship between the ownership structure of the company, namely managerial ownership, foreign ownership, and government ownership as an independent variables to the audit fee agreed by the external auditor. Furthermore, the audit fee illustrate how the client's internal control level was going and the agency conflict that may occur. The type of data used in this study is secondary data and involves 173 public companies in Indonesia. The sampling method in this research uses purposive sampling technique for the company that has been listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange which publishes annual report in 2015 and discloses voluntary information about audit fee and the composition of share ownership of company. The analysis technique used is multiple linear regression analysis with OLS model. This study uses agency theory to formulate three hypotheses that lead to the results of the analysis. The results showed a significant positive effect between the foreign and government ownership structure on the audit fee. While managerial ownership is negatively but not significant.
Energy Efficiency Practice: A Focus on Residential Households

Energy efficiency interventions could lead to significant energy and operational costs through the replacement of old technology and appliances. Nigerian homes require a lot of energy to take care of this and operation of electrical appliances. Power generation and distribution is however a major constraint to this; hence they resort to other sources of energy which at times may not be environmentally and economically sustainable. This situation is not helped by poor energy efficiency practice in the country which places much pressure on the already inadequate power infrastructure available in the country. In the context of this paper, energy efficiency is the use of energy in a manner that will minimize the quantum of energy required for the provision of services. By implication, it is all about using less energy to achieve same or better result. This paper is aimed at investigating the level of compliance to electricity energy efficiency practice (end-use efficiency) by households in Lagos Metropolis. The study is based on a survey (use of structured questionnaire) of 500 households selected from three (4) local government areas in Lagos out of which 402 were retrieved, but only 355 were found useful for analysis . The paper looks at the technology and behavioral approach to energy efficiency. The technology approach deals with the type of appliances used by households and their compliance to energy efficiency while, the behavioral approach is an enquiry into households’ attitudes and energy practice as they affect efficiency. The paper also investigates the factors that influence households’ energy efficiency practice. The result from the data analysis showed that households have poor attitude towards energy efficiency practices both behaviorally and technologically. The paper concludes that energy efficiency is not practiced in majority of households while government’s policies seem not to recognize it’s important in the economic and environmental sustainability of the power sector. The paper recommends that an appropriate energy policy that will encourage energy efficiency awareness should be formulated in order to lead the country to economic development