Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Discriminating High Fall Risk on an Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit

&NA; The objective of this study was to identify on admission the most discriminating fall predictors for patients to an inpatient rehabilitation unit. Medical information from 34 patients who fell over a consecutive 7‐month period and 102 controls (1:3 ratio) matched for diagnosis, age, and gender was analyzed to identify a set of best predictors. Admission mobility and problem solving FIM™ scores accounted for 17% of variance in whether a fall occurred during the admission. After statistically deriving optimal cutoff thresholds for decision making, high fall risk was retroactively assigned to patients. Logistic regression revealed increased odds of having fallen by 5.1 times for poorer mobility and 2.4 times for poorer problem solving. The practical benefits of the evidence‐based risk assessment were discussed.
Rapid and Accurate Species-Level Identification of Coagulase-Negative Staphylococci by Using the sodA Gene as a Target

ABSTRACT Simple PCR and sequencing assays that utilize a single pair of degenerate primers were used to characterize a 429-bp-long DNA fragment internal (sodAint) to the sodA gene encoding the manganese-dependent superoxide dismutase in 40 coagulase-negative staphylococcal (CNS) type strains. The topology of the phylogenetic tree obtained was in general agreement with that which was inferred from an analysis of their 16S rRNA or hsp60gene sequences. Sequence analysis revealed that the staphylococcalsodA genes exhibit a higher divergence than does the corresponding 16S ribosomal DNA. These results confirm that thesodA gene constitutes a highly discriminative target sequence for differentiating closely related bacterial species. Clinical isolates that could not be identified at the species level by phenotypical tests were identified by use of this database. These results demonstrate the usefulness of this method for rapid and accurate species identification of CNS isolates, although it does not allow discrimination of subspecies. The sodA sequence polymorphisms observed with staphylococcal species offer good opportunities for the development of assays based on DNA chip technologies.
Are satellite cells lost during short-term disuse-induced muscle fiber atrophy?

to the editor: Arentson-Lantz et al. ([1][1]) report that 14 days of bed rest (BR) induces a profound decline in muscle strength (−13%) and fiber cross-sectional area (CSA) (−24%) in middle-aged adults. More importantly, they report that short-term disuse-induced muscle fiber atrophy is
Incidence of cystoid macular edema after Descemet's stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty.

AIM To determine the incidence of cystoid macular edema (CME) after Descemet's stripping automated endothelial keratoplasty (DSAEK). METHODS This study included all consecutive patients operated in a Spanish tertiary reference hospital over a period of four years. A total of 55 eyes from 47 patients matched the selection criteria. CME was diagnosed clinically at the slit-lamp and confirmed by optical coherence tomography. RESULTS Six cases of CME were diagnosed postoperatively, which represented an incidence of 11%. Three patients had previously undergone DSAEK alone (7%; 3/41) and the other three, DSAEK combined with phacoemulsification (21%; 3/14). Five out of six patients with CME responded to standard therapy. CONCLUSION CME is a possible complication after DSAEK and can be treated with standard therapy. CME appears more frequently when DSAEK is combined with phacoemulsification and posterior chamber (PC) intraocular lens (IOL) implantation. Intraoperative damage to the corneal endothelial cells might play a role in the pathogenesis of CME. As long as the causes remain unclear, we recommend administering prophylaxis when risk factors are present or when combined surgery is planned.
Role of Reactive Oxygen Species in TGF-β1-Induced Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinase Activation and Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition in Renal Tubular Epithelial Cells

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) plays an important role in renal tubulointerstitial fibrosis and TGF-β1 is the key inducer of EMT. Phosphorylation of Smad proteins and/or mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) is required for TGF-β1–induced EMT. Because reactive oxygen species (ROS) are involved in TGF-β1 signaling and are upstream signaling molecules to MAPK, this study examined the role of ROS in TGF-β1–induced MAPK activation and EMT in rat proximal tubular epithelial cells. Growth-arrested and synchronized NRK-52E cells were stimulated with TGF-β1 (0.2 to 20 ng/ml) or H 2 O 2 (1 to 500 μM) in the presence or absence of antioxidants (N-acetylcysteine or catalase), inhibitors of NADPH oxidase (diphenyleneiodonium and apocynin), mitochondrial electron transfer chain subunit I (rotenone), and MAPK (PD 98059, an MEK [MAP kinase/ERK kinase] inhibitor, or p38 MAPK inhibitor) for up to 96 h. TGF-β1 increased dichlorofluorescein-sensitive cellular ROS, phosphorylated Smad 2, p38 MAPK, extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK)1/2, α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) expression, and fibronectin secretion and decreased E-cadherin expression. Antioxidants effectively inhibited TGF-β1–induced cellular ROS, phosphorylation of Smad 2, p38 MAPK, and ERK, and EMT. H 2 O 2 reproduced all of the effects of TGF-β1 with the exception of Smad 2 phosphorylation. Chemical inhibition of ERK but not p38 MAPK inhibited TGF-β1–induced Smad 2 phosphorylation, and both MAPK inhibitors inhibited TGF-β1- and H 2 O 2 -induced EMT. Diphenyleneiodonium, apocynin, and rotenone also significantly inhibited TGF-β1–induced ROS. Thus, this data suggest that ROS play an important role in TGF-β1–induced EMT primarily through activation of MAPK and subsequently through ERK-directed activation of Smad pathway in proximal tubular epithelial cells.
Sentiment Classification of Chinese Financial Reviews

In order to explore the method of sentiment classification of Chinese text, this paper takes the Chinese comments of financial sector as the main research object and carries out text sentiment classification tasks. This paper proposes to initialize the word embedding with dictionary, to solve the problem that some words have opposite sentimental trendencies but similar distributed representation. Three commonly used evaluation indexs and their average value(AvgScore), the accuracy of classifier, the average recall rate and MacroF1, were given to evaluate the model. Through comparative analysis to explore the factors that influence the effect of classifier, this paper uses CNN, LSTM, GRU as the substructer and constructs a total of 9 models with different structures and depths for comparative study. Based on the top three models on AvgScore, this paper studies the method of initializing the word embedding with sampling and random perturbation technique. The results show that the sampling technique has the greatest impact on the classifier effect. Among the different sampling techniques, AvgScore difference by 1.1% to 38.3%. The best results can be obtained from the mix use of downsampling technique in majority and few oversampling technique. The classifier obtained by word embedding with sentiment dictionary is better than using other word vectors. Its highest accuracy rate, MacroF1, AvgScore respectively are 82.37%, 77.26% and 77.62%, and the other highest are 82.19%, 76.73%, 77.08%. In this paper, the top three classifiers with the highest AvgScore are selected to build the classifier in ensemble approach. The accuracy of the final ensemble method classifier is 84.00%, the average recall is 74.58%, the Macro F1 is 79.50%, and the AvgScore is 79.36%.
Liquidity and Profitability Analysis of Non-Financial Entities Listed on the Macedonian Stock Exchange

Liquidity management has a considerable influence on company performance. By analyzing secondary financial company data, this paper seeks to assess the correlation between liquidity and profitability. Through the use of audited annual report of 76 non-financial entities listed on the Macedonian Stock Exchange for the period 2014-2017, the study looks into the association between two traditional liquidity measures, current ratio and acid-test ratio, and three profitability measures, return on assets, return on equity and return on capital employed. Prior to embarking on the statistical research, literature review was performed to obtain basis for the test of hypotheses. Through the use of SPSS software, the dataset comprised of 304 observations generated descriptive statistics, and was subjected to tests of normality and variable correlation testing. The empirical findings designate that liquidity and profitability depict a positive association and that the correlation between current ratio and quick ratio on one hand and ROA and ROE on the other is statistically significant. Moreover, the empirical work reveals a slow trade receivables collection across several Macedonian industries which may damage the long-term solvency of companies, especially in times of recession and economic hardship when liquid funds are a must. In conclusion, this study suggests that the liquidity-profitability relationship should be subject to further scholarship having in mind the immense importance that liquidity management has on the financial health and stability of firms.
The Role of Rab 27 a in the Regulation of Melanosome Distribution within Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cells

*Division of Cell Biology, Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London EC1V 9EL, United Kingdom; †Centre of Ophthalmology, Biomedical Institute for Research in Light and Image, University of Coimbra, 3000-354 Coimbra, Portugal; ‡Department of Pathophysiology of Vision and Neuro-ophthalmology, University Eye Hospital, Tübingen, Germany; and §Cell and Molecular Biology, Division of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, United Kingdom
Identifying protein construct variants with increased crystallization propensity––A case study

This study describes an efficient multiparallel automated workflow of cloning, expression, purification, and crystallization of a large set of construct variants for isolated protein domains aimed at structure determination by X‐ray crystallography. This methodology is applied to MAPKAP kinase 2, a key enzyme in the inflammation pathway and thus an attractive drug target. The study reveals a distinct subset of truncation variants with improved crystallization properties. These constructs distinguish themselves by increased solubility and stability during a parallel automated multistep purification process including removal of the recombinant tag. High‐throughput protein melting point analysis characterizes this subset of constructs as particularly thermostable. Both parallel purification screening and melting point determination clearly identify residue 364 as the optimal C terminus for the kinase domain. Moreover, all three constructs that ultimately crystallized feature this C terminus. At the N terminus, only three amino acids differentiate a noncrystallizing from a crystallizing construct. This study addresses the very common issues associated with difficult to crystallize proteins, those of solubility and stability, and the crucial importance of particular residues in the formation of crystal contacts. A methodology is suggested that includes biophysical measurements to efficiently identify and produce construct variants of isolated protein domains which exhibit higher crystallization propensity.
Nouveaux concepts dans la pharmacologie des récepteurs aux acides gras à chaîne courte FFA2 et FFA3

Les maladies metaboliques, comme le diabete, la dyslipidemie ou l’obesite, constituent un probleme majeur de sante publique dans les pays developpes. Ces maladies tres repandues restent encore difficiles a traiter malgre une recherche active. Les strategies therapeutiques contre ces maladies incluent le developpement de nouvelles molecules ciblant les recepteurs aux acides gras, etant donne leur role essentiel dans l’homeostasie du metabolisme. C’est dans ce contexte que s’inscrit ce travail portant sur deux recepteurs couples aux proteines G, les recepteurs aux acides gras a courte chaine 2 et 3 ou free fatty acid receptors 2 (FFA2) et 3 (FFA3). Nous avons tout d'abord cherche a determiner le profil d'expression des deux recepteurs. Ensuite, nous avons etabli des lignees cellulaires stable exprimant FFA2 ou FFA3 afin d’etudier la pharmacologie d’agonistes synthetiques et endogenes de ces recepteurs. Apres avoir identifie les voies de signalisation engendrees par l’activation des recepteurs, nous avons demontre que les agonistes synthetiques etaient des activateurs allosteriques, c’est-a-dire qu’ils se liaient aux recepteurs sur un site distinct de celui des ligands endogenes. Pour identifier les residus d’acides amines necessaires a la reconnaissance des ligands, nous avons genere une gamme de mutants ponctuels de ces recepteurs par mutagenese dirigee. En analysant l’effet des mutations dans des tests fonctionnels, nous avons pu determiner avec precision ou se liaient les ligands et ainsi pu dessiner par informatique des modeles structuraux des recepteurs qui pourront etre utilises pour le drug design de futures molecules agonistes de ces recepteurs.
Peran Kepala Desa dalam Pengelolaan Dana Desa di Kecamatan Essang Selatan Kabupaten Kepulauan Talaud

The phenomenon in the management of village funds, the Village Head as the holder of the power of financialmanagement and village assets, in determining the budget of village income and expenditure does not involve the componentsof society other than that the obligation to submit reports on the implementation of APBDes to the community is notimplemented. Based on the background of the problem, the purpose of this research is to know / explain the role of villagehead in managing the village fund in South Essang Subdistrict The type of research used in this study is qualitative research.The focus of this research is the role of village head in the management of village fund in South Essang sub-district.Reviewed on budget planning, implementation, and evaluation. Determination of informants is based on the criteriaaccording to the research objectives. The result of the research shows that the Village Fund Program Planning in SouthEssang Subdistrict has not gradually implemented the concept of village community participation development which isproven by participative, responsive, transparency principle, in order to realize every priority program of society needs.Villages that are held through Musrembangdes, the implementation of the Village Fund program, in the physicaldevelopment, community empowerment has been running in accordance with the planning in musyawarah kan, but theproblem is the lack of supervision by the village government to the people who cheat so that inhibition of village fundmanagement in the field of development and Empowerment. Evaluation for village funds in 2016 already underway but, insuccessful development can not be separated from obstacles in its work
The 2009 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice

This paper presents results of the 2009 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice (SCPC), along with revised 2008 SCPC data. In 2009, the average U.S. consumer held 5.0 of the nine payment instruments available, including cash, and used 3.8 of them during a typical month. Between the 2008 and 2009 surveys, a period that includes the trough of the latest recession, consumers significantly increased their use of cash and close substitutes for cash, such as money orders and prepaid cards. At the same time, consumers reduced their use of credit cards and (to a lesser extent) debit cards, as well as payments made using a bank account number. Weaker economic conditions, new government regulations, and bank pricing of payment card services all likely contributed to the shift back toward cash. However, it is difficult to determine how much each of these factors contributed, and whether the shift is transitory or permanent, without more data and research on consumer payment choice. In 2009, one in three consumers had a prepaid card and nearly as many had a nonbank payment account online, while 3 percent made a mobile payment. By focusing on payments by consumers only, the SCPC complements the recent 2010 Federal Reserve Payment Study, which describes the entire noncash payments economy.
Diversity Analysis for Relay-Assisted Distributed BICM-OSTBC- OFDM System

Maximum spatial-frequency diversity can be achieve by combining bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM), orthogonal space-time block coding (OSTBC) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) in frequency selective multi-path fading channels, provided that perfect channel state information (CSI) is available to the receiver. In view of the fact that perfect CSI can be obtained only if a sufficient amount of resource is allocated for training or pilot data, this paper investigates DF relay based technique for the distributed BICM-OSTBC-OFDM system. Our focus is mainly on noncoherent diversity analysis. We study a class of carefully designed transmission schemes, called perfect channel identifiability (PCI) achieving schemes, and show that they can exhibit good diversity performance. Specifically, we present a worst-case diversity analysis framework to show that PCI-achieving schemes can achieve the maximum noncoherent spatial-frequency diversity of distributed BICM-OSTBC-OFDM. Simulation results are presented to confirm our theoretical claims and show that the proposed noncoherent schemes can exhibit near-coherent performance.
Simulation Study of Geometric Characteristics and Coverage for Moon-Based Earth Observation in the Electro-Optical Region

Large-scale geoscience phenomena are increasingly attracting more attention because of their great scientific and social significance. However, many existing earth observation systems lack the ability to conduct long-term continuous observations at a regional-to-global scale because of spatial and temporal coverage limitations and systematic bias. In this work, we propose a new platform, the moon, and discuss its potential and optical geometrical characteristics for observing large-scale geoscience phenomena. Based on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory ephemerides, the reference systems transformation and a simulation system of moon-based earth observations were developed. Numerous experiments were carried out and a series of simulation images are presented, which illustrate the wide swath and continuous observation characteristics of such a lunar observatory. In order to quantify the performance of moon-based earth observations, a simplified geometrical model was constructed and data were analyzed. The sublunar points were found to be unique parameters with the ability to characterize the relative positions between moon and earth. We also defined an effective coverage parameter for assessing the optical coverage ability of moon-based earth observations. The calculation showed that the average value of the introduced coverage parameter from 1960 to 2050 was 0.500, and the coverage remained stable in different years. Furthermore, the total daily visible time and repeated times of different positions on the earth surface are analyzed and the effect of different positions on the lunar surface of the observatory are evaluated. The result shows that such a moon-based approach could make significant contributions to the monitoring and understanding of large-scale geoscience phenomena.
Spurious Critical Points in Power System State Estimation

The power systems state estimation problem computes the set of complex voltage phasors given quadratic measurements using nonlinear least squares (NLS). This is a nonconvex optimization problem, so even in the absence of measurement errors, local search algorithms like Newton / Gauss–Newton can become “stuck” at local minima, which correspond to nonsensical estimations. In this paper, we observe that local minima cease to be an issue as redundant measurements are added. Posing state estimation as an instance of the quadratic recovery problem, we derive a bound for the distance between the true solution and the nearest spurious local minimum. We use the bound to show that critical points of the nonconvex least squares objective become increasing rare and far-away from the true solution with the addition of redundant information.
Management of working capital – the Achilles heel of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The case of Greece

Working capital represents the amount of funds invested in firms' current assets. Optimizing working capital management is a challenge and a necessity for firms especially today due to the demand volatility and limit access to bank credit. This paper investigates the relationship between working capital management and firms' performance in small and medium enterprises in Greece. The results suggests that an effective working capital management is a necessary component of firm's future growth and profitability. The analysis used data for a sample of 459 small and medium enterprises for the period from 2008 to 2012. The paper is organized as follows: in the next section we briefly present the problem based on literature review. This is followed by the presentation of research methodology and the data sources used in the analysis. The results are presented and discussed in section three. Last section summarizes the conclusions and presents further opportunities for research.
Re-examining Reputation–Performance Liaison in Indian Context

Abstract Prolific research examining the impact of a good corporate reputation on financial performance has bestowed equivocal findings. Despite this inclusivity, corporate reputation continues to gain impeccable importance in sustaining superior performance. Corporate reputation has emerged as an important asset in emerging markets such as India, where firms are facing competition at the global level. An endeavor has been made through current study to re-examine the reputation–performance liaison in a different economic setting deploying a different measure of corporate reputation. Panel regression technique has been applied on top 500 Indian companies constituting Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) 500 index to observe the impact of corporate reputation on subsequent financial performance during the period ranging from April 1, 2002 to March 31, 2012. The findings of the study reveal that past reputation (captured through listing age) has a significant positive impact on all three measures of financial performance (return on assets [ROA], return on equity [ROE], and asset turnover ratio [ATR]). Hence, the results are in line with previous studies that consider reputation as a strategic resource necessary to enhance firm performance. The study bears significant implications for corporate managers that they should manage the reputation of their organization effectively and use it as a strategic tool to gain competitive advantage.
Reversible high blood CEA and CA19-9 concentrations in a diabetic patient

We observed a 31-year-old male suffering from general malaise and body weight loss for almost 6 months. He came to our hospital for examination, and the reports showed recently diagnosed diabetes (fasting plasma glucose 309 mg/dl, HbA1C 14.9%) with elevated carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) 8.9 ng/ml (normal range 0-5 ng/ml) and carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9) 123 U/ml (normal range 0-37 U/ml). Abdominal computed tomography (CT) revealed faint hypodensity at pancreatic head with mild dilatation of the main pancreatic duct. Positron emission tomography (PET) scan was then arranged to rule out malignancy and the report showed no abnormal fludeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake over the pancreatic head. After 3 months of anti-diabetic drugs treatment with lifestyle modification, his HbA1C fell to 6.8%. At the same time, the tumor markers also declined to normal (CEA 3.8 ng/ml, CA19-9 26.58 U/ml). (Published: 24 October 2012) Citation: Libyan J Med 2012, 7 : 19572 - http://dx.doi. org/10.3402/ljm.v7i0. 19572