Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Topography of spiral ganglion projections to cochlear nucleus during postnatal development in cats

A fundamental organizational principle of the central auditory system is that virtually all areas are tonotopically organized. However, we know very little about the timing or mechanisms that are responsible for the development of this organization. When cats are born, their auditory nervous systems are extremely immature, and their hearing thresholds are very high. Until postnatal days 7–10 (P7–10), cats have behavioral and physiological thresholds which are near or above the pain threshold for adults and also have poor frequency selectivity. Physiological thresholds for auditory nerve fibers and cochlear nucleus neurons are typically above 100–120 dB SPL (sound pressure level re 20 μPa). Three weeks later (at approximately P31), the sensitivity and frequency discrimination (tuning) of these neurons approximate adult values. This study examines the development of the tonotopic projections from the spiral ganglion to the cochlear nucleus during the period in cat development in which the auditory system undergoes the transition from being essentially nonfunctional to having adult‐like function.
Are Home Buyers Inattentive? Evidence from Capitalization of Energy Costs

This paper explores whether home buyers are attentive to energy costs. The cost-effectiveness of market-based pollution policies crucially depends on whether consumers are attentive to energy costs when purchasing energy-using durables. I exploit energy-cost variation from fuel-price changes in Massachusetts where there is significant overlap in the geographic and age distributions of oil-heated and gas-heated homes. The results strongly reject that home buyers are unresponsive to energy costs under a wide range of consumption and discount-rate assumptions. Furthermore, my preferred specification is consistent with full capitalization of fuel expenditures at discount rates similar to mortgage interest rates. (JEL D14, L71, Q41, Q53, Q58, R31)
Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Customer Loyalty in the Fast Food Industry in Nigeria

This study examines how customer’s perception is influenced by factors of customer loyalty towards certain preferred fast food restaurants. Using survey method, 230 out of 572 randomly selected respondents across three universities in Osun state participated in the study. With a 10-item instrument, the respondents were gauged on their perception of their favorite fast food spot within the campuses and their willingness or otherwise to support their growth and continued existence through their patronage. 73% (168) of the respondents felt that their patronage will continue to aid the growth of their chosen fast food restaurant while 84% (193) believed that the enterprise may not survive without their patronage and that of their cohort. While most of the respondents prefer western styled fast food spot, there was a significant interest in traditional/local eateries. Overall, 89.56% (206) of the respondents were satisfied with the quality of service they received from their chosen fast food spot. The study concluded that pricing and promotion have little effect on customer loyalty while product quality and service quality were the main drivers of customer loyalty and retention.
Relationship between Corporate Governance and Firm Performance: A Case Study in Bangladesh

This empirical study, the first of its kind, seeks to quantify the relationship between corporate governance and the performance of firms on DSE listed. As part of this study, the authors undertook an intensive review of literature to identify a range of elements that contribute to overall corporate governance. Using the generalized least square (GLS) technique on 77 listed firms trading over the period from 2010 to 2012. The findings of this study indicate that elements of corporate governance such as the presence of female board members, the duality of the CEO, the working experience of board members, and the compensation of board members have positive effects on the performance of firms, as measured by the return on asset (ROA). However, board size has a negative effect on the performance of firms. This study also presents that ownership of board members has a nonlinear relationship with a firm’s performance.
Cholesterol granuloma of the right epididymis mimicking an acute scrotum.

Dear Sir,I am B. Spajic, the urologist from Clinical Departmentof Urology, Sestre Milosrdnice University Hospital,Zagreb, Croatia. Recently, we had a rare case of acholesterol granuloma of the right epididymis at ourdepartment, showing clinical signs of acute scrotum. Thecase described here appears to be the second reportingcholesterol granuloma in the epididymis and the first onepresenting with clinical signs of acute scrotum.A 31-year-old patient was admitted to our clinic forthe evaluation of acute pain in the right hemiscrotum. Atpresentation, acute scrotum was diagnosed and torsionof right testicular or epididymal appendices was suspected.During examination a severely painful nodular mass waspalpable. The patient had no voiding symptoms or fever,and there were no signs of acute infection (normal whiteblood cell count and urinalysis). The patient’s medicalhistory was uneventful regarding tuberculosis,sarcoidosis, syphilis or fungal infections. The patientdenied recent trauma or sexual intercourse. Chest roent-genogram showed no inflammatory or infiltrative process.Echosonographic finding disclosed an enlarged,hyperechoic and heterogeneous lesion of the epididymis,predominantly in the body and the head, measuring ap-proximately 10 × 20 mm, and moderate hydrocele(Figure 1A). The patient underwent urgent explorationof the right hemiscrotum. During surgery no testiculartorsion or signs of acute epididymitis were observed,but hydrocele was found. A tumor-like induration wasfound in the enlarged head and body of the epididymisand total epididymectomy was easily performed.Pathohistologically, the lesion was located in the head ofthe epididymis and consisted of a zone of necrosis thatinvolved ducts and interstitial connective tissue and wasnot associated with an acute inflammatory response.Inflammatory infiltrates were scanty and consisted oflymphocytes and macrophages. In clusters of mono-nuclear inflammatory cells, cholesterol crystals and giantcells of foreign body type were found (Figure 1B). Thespecimen was diagnosed as cholesterol granuloma of theepididymis. The values of total serum cholesterol werenormal (142 mg/dL). Cholesterol granuloma is an entity consisting offibrogranulomatous tissue containing numerous crystalsof cholesterol and foreign body giant cells [1]. Its patho-genesis is yet to be discovered. Cholesterol granulomais occasionally found in the middle ear [1]. Nodules andmasses are frequently encountered in the epididymis.Their differential diagnosis includes chronic granuloma-tous epididymitis, adenomatoid tumour and benignparatesticular neoplasms. Granulomatous lesions of the
Renovascular Hypertension: Effect of Halothane and Enflurane

Male Wistar rats were anesthetized at 6 weeks of age and a silver clip placed around the renal artery to produce renovascular hypertension. The rats were allowed to grow on a normal sodium diet for the next 6–9 weeks. Using diethyl ether anesthesia, arterial and venous cannulae were placed and the animals allowed to awaken in restraining cages. The group of rats was divided into three groups: awake (n = 7), halothane 1.3 vol% (n = 9), and enflurane 2.2 vol% (n = 8). The protocol consisted of a 1-h control awake period, 1 h of stable anesthesia (one group received no anesthesia), and 30-min iv infusion of saralasin, a competitive inhibitor of angiotensin II. Plasma renin activity (PRA) and plasma catecholamines were measured after 1 h of stable anesthesia and after the saralasin infusion. In additional rats treated identically, radiolabelled microspheres were used to measure cardiac output and regional blood flows during halothane (n = 7) or enflurane (n = 6) anesthesia. Principal responses were as follows: mean arterial pressure (MAP) was 193 · 4 mmHg awake and decreased to 114 · 3 mmHg and 135 · 3 mmHg with halothane and enflurane, respectively. Saralasin decreased MAP in the awake group to 176 · 3 mmHg and to 69 · 3 mmHg and 96 · 5 mmHg with halothane and enflurane, respectively. PRA in the awake rats was 7.24 · 1.3 ng · ml−1 · h−1. PRA increased with halothane but decreased with enflurane. Plasma catecholamines were decreased markedly by saralasin and by both anesthetic agents. Cardiac output was normal in awake rats and blood pressure elevation was due to increased peripheral resistance. Both anesthetic agents decreased cardiac output and myocardial blood flow and increased brain blood flow. The authors conclude that the cardiovascular and hormonal responses to halothane and enflurane anesthesia in renovascular hypertensive rats are different than the responses seen in normotensive rats. Such alterations may explain the differences seen in regional blood flow to various organs.
Strategic Management Formulation Implementation And Control

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ANALISIS FAKTOR-FAKTOR YANG MEMPENGARUHI KEBIJAKAN DIVIDEN PADA PERUSAHAAN CREDIT AGENCIES GO PUBLIC DI BURSA EFEK INDONESIA

The aim of this research is to find out and analyze the effects of return on investment, current ratio, debt equity ratio, and asset turn over on divident pay out ratio of the Credit Agencies company listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange. The data used in this research is 10 companies for the period of 2005 n 2007. The method of data analysis used multiple linier regression. The result indicates that simultaneously the variable of return on investment (ROI), current Ratio (CR), debt equity ratio (DER), and assets turn over signicantly affect divident pay out ratio. Those independent variables are able to explain the effect of dividend pay out ratio amount of 64%, while the remains 36% is determined by other factors. Partially, alln of the variables affect dividend pay out ratio except the variable of current ratio. Return on investment has a dominat effect on dividend pay out ratio. The level of profitability, liquidity, and activity of the companies have positive relationship with the level of dividend pay out ratio. But the leverage has a negative relationship.
Brief Report: long-term outcome of a randomized clinical trial comparing methotrexate to cyclophosphamide for remission induction in early systemic antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis.

OBJECTIVE The NORAM (Nonrenal Wegener's Granulomatosis Treated Alternatively with Methotrexate [MTX]) trial demonstrated that MTX can replace cyclophosphamide (CYC) as remission-inducing treatment for patients with newly diagnosed early systemic antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis. Duration of relapse-free survival was longer among CYC-treated patients than among MTX-treated patients during short-term followup. The aim of the present study was to describe the long-term outcome in patients enrolled in the randomized clinical trial. METHODS Outcome questionnaires were sent to investigators who had recruited patients for the NORAM trial. Patients treated with MTX for induction of remission (n = 49) were compared to CYC-treated patients (n = 46) with respect to immunosuppressive therapy during followup, relapse-free survival, mortality, and occurrence of other clinical events. RESULTS The median duration of followup was 6 years (range 0.1-10.8 years). One patient developed end-stage renal disease, and 11 died. The number of patients affected by serious infection, malignancy, or severe organ failure did not differ between treatment groups, and no difference in survival rate was observed. The duration of corticosteroid therapy was longer in the MTX group during the 18 months of the trial (P = 0.005). During subsequent followup, patients who were in the MTX group in the NORAM trial received corticosteroids, CYC, and other immunosuppressive agents (azathioprine, MTX, and/or mycophenolate mofetil) for longer periods than those who were in the CYC group (P = 0.004, P = 0.037, and P = 0.031, respectively). The cumulative relapse-free survival tended to be lower in the MTX group (P = 0.056). CONCLUSION In the NORAM cohort, no difference in occurrence of major adverse events was observed between treatment groups during long-term followup. However, first-line treatment with MTX was associated with less effective disease control than CYC-based induction therapy.
Perceived Fairness: Conceptual Framework and Scale Development

design. Participants read a hypothetical scenario describing a customer’s relationship with one or two retailers who specialized in selling denim apparel. This scenario was followed by the presentation of price and other attribute information for a pair of Levi blue jeans, available at the focal retailer for either a low price or high price. Participants completed a number of perceptual and attitudinal measures about price including perceived value, loyalty and behavioral intentions. They also completed the Rosenberg (1965) self-esteem scale a week prior to completing the main study.
Carcinosarcomas and mixed mesodermal tumors of the ovary

Mixed epithelial and mesenchymal tumors (carcinosarcomas and mixed mesodermal tumors) are well‐recognized entities in the uterus. It is not widely acknowledged, however, that histologically identical tumors also occur in the ovary, as less than 17 well‐documented examples have been reported to date. A clinical and pathologic study of 13 carcinosarcomas and 14 mixed mesodermal tumors of the ovary in the files of this Institute revealed that the clinical profile of patients with either tumor was similar. Typically, women were postmenopausal and nulliparous. An enlarging abdomen with a mass present for about 5 months was the most common mode of presentation. Grossly, the 2 types of tumors were usually indistinguishable, although by definition the mixed mesodermal tumors contained neoplastc heterologous elements (bone, cartilage, and striated muscle) in addition to carcinosarcomatous foci. The major difference between the 2 groups was in survival. The median survival for patients with mixed mesodermal tumors was 6 months, whereas it was 12 months in women with carinosarcoma. These findings agree with the survival difference noted by Norris and Taylor (1966) for the same neoplasm in the uterus. The differential diagnosis of carcinosarcomas and mixed mesodermal tumors is considered, with an emphasis on the differentiation from malignant teratomas (teratocarcinoma).
Fiscal Federalism in Bosnia-Herzegovina: The Dayton Challenge

The objective of this paper is twofold. On one hand, we undertake an analysis of the recent evolution of capital markets and their effect on the availability of external financing in Mexico in the last two decades. On the other hand, based on a newly assembled firm-level data set on corporate governance and firm performance, we show that better firm-level corporate governance practices are linked to higher valuations, better performance and more dividends disbursed to investors. These results hold after controlling for endogeneity. Overall, the evidence shows that the Mexican legal environment poses serious problems for access to capital.
Differential Receptor for Advanced Glycation End Products Expression in Preeclamptic, Intrauterine Growth Restricted, and Gestational Diabetic Placentas

Receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) is a receptor implicated in the modulation of inflammation. Inflammation has been associated with pregnancy pathologies including preeclampsia (PE), intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Our objective was to examine placental RAGE expression in PE, IUGR, and GDM complications.
Minimum bayes-risk techniques in automatic speech recognition and statistical machine translation

Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and Machine Translation (MT) are fundamental language technologies that are emerging as core components of information processing systems. Each of these problems can be evaluated using a variety of metrics that measure different aspects of recognition or translation performance. In contrast, the training and decoding architectures of most of the current ASR and statistical MT systems are optimized with respect to Sentence Error Rate that is rarely used in evaluating these systems. The goal of this thesis is to overcome this mismatch by building automatic systems specialized for each individual evaluation metric. We employ the Minimum Bayes-Risk (MBR) classification framework to construct systems sensitive to specific error criteria. We present the formulation of MBR decoders in speech recognition and in two sub-problems in machine translation: bitext word alignment and translation. MBR decoding is performed by rescoring a set of likely hypotheses represented as lattices or N-best lists. Statistical ASR systems for generating word lattices have become widely available in the recent years. In contrast, Statistical MT (SMT) has become popular only within the last decade and we did not have access to SMT systems for generating word alignment and translation hypotheses. We therefore formulate and implement a generative, source channel Translation Template Model (TTM) for SMT. The approach we describe allows us to implement each stochastic transformation in this model using a weighted finite state transducer (WFST). This allows translation and bitext word alignment to be realized immediately by standard WFST operations on the component transducers. The TTM is the first phrase-based translation model to be used for bitext word alignment. We describe the construction of a TTM Chinese-to-English translation system that ranked among the top performing systems in the NIST 2004 international MT evaluation. MBR decoders face computational challenges when applied to large vocabulary speech recognition tasks. We introduce the segmental MBR recognition framework that decomposes a large MBR search problem into a sequence of smaller MBR problems. To achieve this, we develop a risk-driven lattice segmentation procedure to segment large recognition word lattices into smaller sub-lattices over which MBR decoding is performed. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
A Mixed Methods Study on the Effect of Flipping the Undergraduate Medical Classroom

The flipped classroom model is increasingly being adopted in healthcare education, despite the fact that recent systematic reviews in the nursing and medical education literature suggest that this method of instructional design is not inherently better or worse than the traditional classroom. In this study, we used a sequential, explanatory mixed methods design to assess the impact of flipping the hepatology classroom for preclinical medical students. Compared to students in the traditional classroom, students in the flipped classroom had significantly lower mean (SD) ratings of their learning experiences (3.48 (1.10) vs. 4.50 (0.72), p < 0.001, d = 1.10), but better performance on the hepatology content of the end-of-course examination (78.0% (11.7%) vs. 74.2 (15.1%), respectively, p < 0.01, d = 0.3). Based upon our qualitative data analyses, we propose that the flipped classroom induced a change in the learning process of students by requiring increased preparation for classroom learning and promoting greater learner autonomy, which resulted in better retention of learned material, but reduced enjoyment of the learning experience. This dissonance in outcomes is captured in the words of one flipped classroom student: “…I hated it while I was learning it, but boy did I remember it…”. Based upon our dissonant outcomes and the inconsistent findings in the literature, we feel that there is still equipoise regarding the effectiveness of the flipped classroom, and further studies are needed to describe ways of making the flipped classroom a more effective (±more enjoyable) learning experience.
Climate Change, Deforestation, and the Fate of the Amazon

The forest biome of Amazonia is one of Earth's greatest biological treasures and a major component of the Earth system. This century, it faces the dual threats of deforestation and stress from climate change. Here, we summarize some of the latest findings and thinking on these threats, explore the consequences for the forest ecosystem and its human residents, and outline options for the future of Amazonia. We also discuss the implications of new proposals to finance preservation of Amazonian forests.
Pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic modeling and simulation to determine effective dosage regimens for doripenem.

The aim of this study was to obtain information on effective dosage regimens of doripenem by a modeling and simulation approach based on pharmacokinetic (PK)/pharmacodynamic (PD) theory. The PK/PD model we have already developed was modified to explain in vitro bactericidal kinetics of doripenem for several Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains. Time-course profiles of bacterial counts in patients infected with P. aeruginosa were simulated for typical clinical dosage regimens in Japan considering the variability of PK and the patients' backgrounds by a Monte Carlo simulation. Moreover, time-course profiles of probability achieving the criterion (log(CFU/mL) < 0) were predicted for the evaluation of antibacterial efficacy by renal function. The in vitro bacterial profiles at various dosage regimens could be well explained by the PK/PD model. The simulations suggested the dependence of antibacterial efficacy on the frequency of administration, indicating time-dependent antibacterial activity. It was also suggested that 500 mg t.i. d. showed significant bacterial reduction in patients for any degree of renal function and any severities in 2 weeks after the start of treatment. Our approach to simulate time-course profiles of bacterial counts should be useful for determining and examining effective dosage regimens, including the treatment period, in drug development.
Gordon-Normal Aging Reduces Priming 1 RUNNING HEAD : Priming and Aging Effect of Repetition Lag on Priming of Unfamiliar Visual Objects in Young and Older Adults

Across three experiments, we examined the effect of repetition lag on priming of unfamiliar visual objects in healthy young and older adults. Multiple levels of lag were examined, ranging from short (one to four intervening stimuli) to long (50+ intervening stimuli). In each experiment, subjects viewed a series of new and repeated line drawings of objects and decided whether they depicted structurally possible or impossible figures. Experiment 1 and 2 found similar levels of priming in young and older adults at short and medium lags. At the longer repetition lags (~20+ intervening stimuli), older adults showed less overall priming, as measured by reaction time facilitation, than young adults. This indicates that older adults can rapidly encode unfamiliar three-dimensional objects to support priming at shorter lags; however, they cannot maintain these representations over longer intervals. In addition to repetition lag, we also explored the relationship between priming and cognitive reserve, as measured by education and verbal intelligence. In the older adults, higher levels of cognitive reserve were associated with greater reaction time priming, suggesting that cognitive reserve may mediate the relationship between aging and priming.