Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
How swelling debts give rise to a new type of politics in Vietnam

Vietnam has seen fast-rising debts, both domestic and external, in recent years. This paperreviews the literature on credit market in Vietnam, providing an up-to-date take on the domesticlending and borrowing landscape. The study highlights the strong demand for credit in both therural and urban areas, the ubiquity of informal lenders, the recent popularity of consumer financecompanies, as well as the government’s attempts to rein in its swelling public debt. Given thehigh level of borrowing, which is fueled by consumerism and geopolitics, it is inevitable that theamount of debt will soon be higher than the saving of the borrowers. Unlike the conventionalwisdom that creditors have more bargaining power over the borrowers, we suggest that—albeitlacking a quantitative estimation—when the debts pile up so high that the borrowers could notrepay, the power dynamics may reverse. In this new politics of debt, the lenders fear to lose themoney’s worth and continue to lend and feed the insolvent debtors. The result is a toxic lending/borrowing market and profound lessons, from which the developing world could learn.
Evaluation of the impact of statin therapy on the obesity paradox in patients with acute myocardial infarction

Abstract The phenomenon of obesity paradox after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has been reported under strong recommendation of statin therapy. However, the impact of statin therapy on this paradox has not been investigated. This study investigated the impact of statin therapy on 1-year mortality according to obesity after AMI. A total of 2745 AMI patients were included from the Korea Acute Myocardial Infarction Registry after 1:4 propensity score matching analysis (n = 549 for nonstatin group and n = 2196 for statin group). Primary and secondary outcomes were all-cause and cardiac death, respectively. During 1-year follow-up, the incidence of all-cause (8.4% vs 3.7%) and cardiac (6.2% vs 2.3%) death was higher in nonstatin group than in statin (P < .001, respectively). In nonstatin group, the incidence of all-cause (7.2% vs 9.0%) and cardiac (5.5% vs 6.5%) death did not differ significantly between obese and nonobese patients. However, in statin group, obese patients had lower 1-year rate of all-cause (1.7% vs 4.8%) and cardiac (1.2% vs 2.9%) death (P < .05, respectively), and lower cumulative rates by Kaplan–Meier analysis of all-cause and cardiac death compared with nonobese patients (log-rank P < .05, respectively). The overall risk of all-cause death was significantly lower in obese than in nonobese patients only in statin group (hazard ratio: 0.35; P = .001). After adjusting for confounding factors, obesity was independently associated with decreased risk of all-cause death in statin group. In conclusion, the greater benefit of statin therapy for survival in obese patients is further confirmation of the obesity paradox after AMI.
The Association between Board Diversity, Earnings Management and Firm Performance in Kuwait: A Research Agenda

This paper aims to examine the consequences of board diversity. The objectives are to measure the impact of gender, age, national diversity on earnings management (EM). This research study raises the following questions: Does board diversity affect earnings management and firm performance? Has the 2013 Kuwait Corporate Governance Code impacted on board diversity on earnings management, beside firm performance? The research uses data from 103 non-financial Kuwaiti listed companies in the period from 2010 to 2017. The data is collected from the companies’ data from secondary sources such as their annual reports. The data analysis methods are correlation, multi-regression and robust regression. Earnings management was measured using the model modified by Jones (1995) and Kothari et al. (2005). Firm performance measured by ROA, ROE, Tobin’s Q and total shareholder return. The independent variables are gender diversity, age diversity, nationality diversity, board size, board independent and role duality. Control variables are firm size, industry type, total debt, total revenue, oil price, percentage change oil price, gold price, the percentage change of gold price and, ROA.
Pilot study Effects of a single dose of a fl avonoid-rich blueberry drink on memory in 8 to 10 y old children

Objective: Recent evidence from animals and adult humans has demonstrated potential benefits to cognition from flavonoid supplementation. The aim of this study was to investigate whether these cognitive benefits extended to a sample of school-aged children. Method: Using a crossover design, with a washout of at least 7 d between drinks, 14 children ages 8 to 10 y consumed either a flavonoid-rich blueberry drink or a matched vehicle. Two h after consumption, the children completed a battery of five cognitive tests comprising the Go-NoGo, Stroop, Rey’s Auditory Verbal Learning Task, Object Location Task, and a Visual N-back. Results: In comparison to the vehicle, the blueberry drink produced significant improvements in the delayed recall of a previously learned list of words, showing for the first time a cognitive benefit for acute flavonoid intervention in children. However, performance on a measure of proactive interference indicated that the blueberry intervention led to a greater negative impact of previously memorized words on the encoding of a set of new words. There was no benefit of our blueberry intervention for measures of attention, response inhibition, or visuospatial memory. Conclusions: Although findings are mixed, the improvements in delayed recall found in this pilot study suggest that, following acute flavonoid-rich blueberry interventions, school-aged children encode memory items more effectively. 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Comparative Studies of Psychological Function in Patients with Advanced Cancer. II. Interviewer‐Rated Current and Past Psychological Symptoms

&NA; This study compared psychologic function, especially depression, in patients with advanced cancer and in sociodemographically matched, physically healthy patients who had recently attempted suicide. A companion study examined self‐report of depressive symptoms; the present study relied on a semistructured interview technique. Eighty patients who were hospitalized on a research oncology ward for treatment of disseminated cancer, acute leukemia, Stage IV Hodgkin's disease, or myeloma were compared by means of the Current and Past Psychopathology Scales (CAPPS) to 80 patients hospitalized on a psychiatric unit for attempted suicide. Interviewer ratings yielded scores on eight scales characterizing each patient's psychologic adjustment during the past month and 18 scales characterizing adjustment prior to the present illness (cancer or suicide attempt). Results showed that by both self‐report and observer report, cancer patients wee less depressed and anxious in the past month than the psychiatric group. Approximately one‐third on the cancer patients were significantly depressed, depending on the measure used; one‐seventh had experienced some suicidal ideation. Cancer patients were better adjusted in the past than the comparison group; however, the cancer patients who were presently most depressed were those who had a prior history of depression and had shown a tendency to brood. Among cancer patients who died during the study period, no correlation between severity of depression and nearness to death could be found. Findings supported use of denial of dysphoric emotions by the cancer patients, but little denial of the diagnosis or the need to accept treatment. Despite stress of advanced illness and threat to life, cancer patient's reality testing and social role performance were superior to that of the suicide attempters, and on the average they had less disturbance of affect and cognition.
DN‐R175H p53 mutation is more effective than p53 interference in inducing epithelial disorganization and activation of proliferation signals in human carcinoma cells: Role of E‐cadherin

One of the hallmarks of carcinomas is epithelial disorganization, linked to overexpression of matrix metalloproteases (MMP) like MMP‐9, loss of intercellular E‐cadherin and activation of epidermal growth receptor (EGFR/erbB1). Since the p53 tumor suppressor pathway is inactivated in most human cancers due to gene mutations or defective wt p53 signaling, we now investigated in human wt p53 breast carcinoma MCF‐7 cells, whether single treatment with the p53 transactivation pharmacological inhibitor pifithrin‐α, transient p53 siRNA interference or stable insertion of a dominant‐negative (DN) R175H p53 mutant increase: (i) EGFR/erbB1 activation, (ii) MMP‐9 expression and (iii) loss of surface E‐cadherin. Transient abrogation of wt p53 function increased phosphorylation of EGFR/erbB1 and MMP‐9 expression. However, all these effects were much more pronounced in cells stably transduced with the dominant negative–Arg‐175His mutant p53 (DN‐R175H mutant p53), which also showed loss of epithelial cytoarchitecture and extensive E‐cadherin downregulation. Collectively, these results support the notion that the DN‐R175H mutant p53 exerts a gain of oncogenic function by promoting disruption of E‐cadherin intercellular contacts and activation of proliferation signals. Our data suggests that epithelial shape and growth control are unequally affected depending on how wt p53 function is impaired and whether partial or full tumor suppressor activity is lost. © 2009 UICC
Psychometric properties of the Dutch Chronic Fatigue Syndrome--Activities and Participation Questionnaire (CFS-APQ).

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The Chronic Fatigue Syndrome-Activities and Participation Questionnaire (CFS-APQ) is a recently developed disease-specific assessment tool for monitoring activity limitations and participation restrictions in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). In this study, the convergent validity, content validity, and test-retest reliability of data obtained with the Dutch-language version of the questionnaire were examined. SUBJECTS AND METHODS One hundred eleven consecutive patients with CFS were enrolled, of whom 47 fulfilled all inclusion criteria. The subjects were first asked to rate their pain, fatigue, and ability to concentrate using 3 visual analog scales, to list at least 5 activities that had become difficult to perform due to their complaints, and to complete the CFS-APQ. Furthermore, subjects were asked to complete a modified version of the CFS-APQ at home and return it to the investigators. The content of the questionnaire was reviewed using the World Health Organization's International Classification of Impairments, Disability and Health (ICIDH) beta II draft. Spearman rank correlation coefficients (R) were used for the convergent validity analysis, and intraclass correlation coefficients were computed for the assessment of the test-retest data. RESULTS Overall scores on the CFS-APQ correlated with the scores from the visual analog scales for pain (R=.51, P<.001) and fatigue (R=.50, P<.001). The majority of the responses (157 out of 183 answers [85.8%]) to the request to "list difficult activities" matched the content of the CFS-APQ. Using the ICIDH beta II draft, 21 out of 26 questions were found to address activities, and the remaining 5 questions measured the participation level. The Cronbach alpha coefficient was.94, and intraclass correlation coefficients for test-retest reliability of the overall scores were >or= . 95 (P<.001). DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION The results substantiate the convergent validity, content validity, and reliability of the CFS-APQ scores for patients with CFS.
Fatigue Experiments on Single Crystal Silicon in an Oxygen-Free Environment

The fatigue lifetime of single crystal silicon (SCS) was characterized in an environment free of oxygen, humidity, and organics. Long-term (> 1010 Hz) fatigue experiments performed with smooth-walled SCS devices showed no signs of fatigue damage up to 7.5 GPa. In contrast, experiments using SCS devices with a silicon dioxide (SiO2) coating and rough sidewalls due to scalloping from deep reactive ion etching exhibited fatigue drift at 2.7 GPa and suffered from short-term (<; 1010 Hz) fatigue failure at stress levels >3 GPa. In these SCS-SiO2 experiments, the initiation of fracture occurs in the SiO2 layer. It is concluded that fatigue in this case is likely attributed to a subcritical cracking mechanism; not reaction-layer nor dislocation related. A cross-comparison with other works from literature is developed to show that packaging a pristine device in an inert environment is necessary in order to operate devices at high-stress levels.
Validite des cinetiques de sechage sous des conditions d'air variables

Le but de ce travail est de definir les limites de validite des cinetiques de sechage lorsque les caracteristiques locales de l'air dans un sechoir, varient fortement d'un endroit a un autre. L'etude est menee aussi bien numeriquement qu'experimentalement sur un materiau poreux non hygroscopique: la brique. Apres une revue bibliographique des principaux modeles de transfert de chaleur et de masse, c'est un modele de prise de moyenne qui est retenu: celui de whitaker. Ce dernier est resolu en monodimensionnel par la methode numerique des volumes de controle (methode de patankar). Le paradoxe de whitaker est revu et discute, et une etude de sensibilite de certains parametres est effectuee. Cette etude montre que, l'amelioration du modele passe par la connaissance precise de la permeabilite relative au liquide specialement aux faibles saturations, de la saturation irreductible en fonction de la distribution des pores et des coefficients d'echange en fonction de la saturation en surface. L'outil numerique ci-dessus etant mis en place, l'examen des cinetiques globales de sechage avec des conditions d'air variables est alors aborde, l'etude experimentale etant completee par la simulation numerique des variations des caracteristiques de l'air sous differentes formes. En vue de la gestion d'un sechoir, la simulation a ete reprise en utilisant un modele theorique simple de diffusion ou le coefficient global de migration de l'humidite est obtenu a partir des cinetiques experimentales. Les resultats montrent que, si la variation d'une des caracteristiques de l'air est relativement rapide, la cinetique perd momentanement son sens
Investigation of Active Operations as a Threat to the Economic Security of Commercial Banks in Times of Crisis

At present there is an increasing interest in corporate governance in commercial banks in general and in asset management in particular. This suggests that corporate governance aimed at minimizing risks becomes the leading link in the system of effective management of a credit institution. The article examines the evolution of approaches to risk management processes, analyzes the notion of asset management, describes the main elements of credit policy from the point of view of managing the credit risk of assets, and compares it with market risk. Much attention is paid to market risk as a set of private risks, the methods of their calculation and the problems of their implementation are described. The article concludes the role of optimization of asset management and risks inherent in it, in the implementation of threats to the economic security of a commercial bank. Keywords— active operations, economic security of the bank, banking risks, methods of calculating risks
Employee stock options and real earnings managementthrough accretive share buyback in Malaysia

We examine the association between employee stock options and real earnings management through accretive buyback programs.Our study uses unbalanced panel logistic estimation model for a sample of 601 firms’ observations that involved in accretive share buyback over the period 2010-2015. The outcomes reveal that stock options exercised by insiders (executives and employees) are associated with high likely to engage in accretive share buyback activities. The results also provide evidence that a large percentage of the independent directors serving the board constrain real earnings management by engaging in accretive share buybacks. Our study contributes to the debate on stock options, and their impact on accretive buyback programs to manage reported EPS. Our findings provide insight to investors and the policymakers that managers holding stock options have more incentive to manage EPS through accretive share buyback activities. Academic researchers could extend this study by separating among executive and employees’ stock options and between exercisable and non-exercisable stock options.
Liquidity Risks, Transaction costs and Online Portfolio Selection

The performance of online (sequential) portfolio selection (OPS), which rebalances a portfolio in every period (e.g. daily or weekly) in order to maximise the portfolio's expected terminal wealth in the long run, has been overestimated by the ideal assumption of unlimited market liquidity (i.e. no market impact costs). Therefore, a new transaction cost factor model that considers both market impact costs, estimated from limit order book data, and proportional transaction costs (e.g. brokerage commissions or transaction taxes in a fixed percentage) has been proposed in this paper to measure existing OPS strategies performance in a more practical way as well as to develop a more effective OPS method. Backtesting results from the historical limit order book (LOB) data of NASDAQ-traded stocks show both the performance deterioration of existing OPS methods by the market impact costs and the superiority of our proposed OPS method in the environment of limited market liquidity.
Optimal iteration scheduling for intra- and inter-tile reuse in nested loop accelerators

High Level Synthesis tools have reduced accelerator design time. However, a complex scaling problem that remains is the data transfer bottleneck. Accelerators require huge amounts of data and are often limited by interconnect resources. Local buffers can reduce communication by exploiting data reuse, but the data access order has a substantial impact on the amount of reuse that can be utilized. With loop transformations such as interchange and tiling the data access order can be modified. However, for real applications the design space is huge, finding the best set of transformations is often intractable. Therefore, we present a new methodology that minimizes the data transfer by loop interchange and tiling. In contrast to other methods we take inter-tile reuse and loop bounds into account. For real-world applications we show buffer size trade-offs that can give speedups up to 14x, alternatively these can reduce the required FPGA resources substantially.
How do patients use antimalarial drugs? A review of the evidence

Patient adherence is a major determinant of the therapeutic response to antimalarial drugs, as most treatments are taken at home without medical supervision. With the introduction of new, effective, but more expensive antimalarials, there is concern that the high levels of efficacy observed in clinical trials may not be translated into effectiveness in the normal context of use. We reviewed available published evidence on adherence to antimalarial drugs and community drug usage; 24 studies were identified of which nine were ‘intervention’ studies, seven were classified as ‘outcome studies’, and the remainder were purely descriptive studies of antimalarial adherence. Definitions, methods, and results varied widely. Adherence was generally better when treatments were effective, and was improved by interventions focusing on provider knowledge and behaviour, packaging, and provision of correct dosages. There is insufficient information on this important subject, and current data certainly do not justify extrapolation from results with ineffective drugs to new effective treatments. Research in this area would benefit from of standardization of methodologies and the application of pharmacokinetic modelling.
New approaches to the pharmacotherapy of neuropathic pain

Pain is one of the most debilitating symptoms that presents with neuropathy. Neuropathic pain syndrome is a challenge to treat and, even with appropriate evidence-based treatment, only a 40% reduction of symptoms can be achieved in approximately half of patients. Furthermore, efficient doses are often difficult to obtain because of adverse effects. These observations underline that the treatment of neuropathic pain is still an unmet medical need. New approaches to the pharmacotherapy of neuropathy embrace different lines of work, including a fundamental mechanism-based approach, a clinical mechanism-based approach and an evidence-based approach. Moreover, interindividual variability in drug response, and genetic polymorphism in particular, is an emerging aspect to consider. Together with reviewing recent evidence-based guidelines as well as briefly discussing genetic polymorphisms that may influence the individual responses to treatments, this article will focus on what a mechanism-based approach is bringing to the clinical setting, on the perspective in fundamental research and on the difficulty of bridging the gap between fundamental notions and positive clinical outcomes.
Quantitation of Replication-Competent HIV-1 in Populations of Resting CD4+ T Cells

ABSTRACT Central memory (TCM) CD4+ T cells are the principal reservoir of latent HIV-1 infection that persists despite durable, successful antiretroviral therapy (ART). In a study that measured HIV DNA in 17 patients and replication-competent HIV in 4 patients, pools of resting and activated transitional memory (TTM) CD4+ T cells were found to be a reservoir for HIV infection. As defective viruses account for the majority of integrated HIV DNA and do not reflect the actual frequency of latent, replication-competent proviral infection, we assessed the specific contribution of resting TTM cells to latent HIV infection. We measured the frequency of replication-competent HIV in purified resting memory cell subpopulations by a limiting-dilution, quantitative viral outgrowth assay (QVOA). HIV was routinely detected within the resting central memory compartment but was infrequently detected within the resting TTM compartment. These observations suggest that prolonged ART may limit persistent latent infection in the TTM compartment. Our results confirm the importance of latent infection within the TCM compartment and again focus attention on these cells as the most important latent viral reservoir. While proliferation may drive expansion of detectable viral genomes in cells, the frequency of replication-competent HIV must be carefully assessed. Latent infection appears to wane within the transitional memory compartment in patients who have sustained successful viral suppression via ART or were treated very early in infection. IMPORTANCE Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has led to a significant decrease in morbidity and mortality among HIV-infected patients. However, HIV integrates into the genome of CD4+ T cells, generating pools of long-lived cells that are reservoirs of latent HIV. Two main subsets of CD4+ T cells, central memory and transitional memory cells, were reported to be major reservoirs of HIV infection. However, this study primarily measured the HIV DNA content, which also includes defective proviruses that would not be able to replicate and initiate new rounds of infection. By analyzing the replication-competent virus in both cell subsets, we showed that transitional memory cells may not be a durable reservoir in patients on successful ART.