Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Propofol and Alfentanil Prevent the Increase in Intraocular Pressure Caused by Succinylcholine and Endotracheal Intubation During a Rapid Sequence Induction of Anesthesia

The increase in intraocular pressure (IOP) associated with succinylcholine (Sch) has made its use in patients with open globe injuries controversial.Studies that have examined techniques to prevent the increase in IOP due to Sch have shown a larger increase in IOP from the stimulus of laryngoscopy and endotracheal intubation. The purpose of our study was to examine whether the combination of propofol and alfentanil would prevent the increase in IOP due to Sch as well as endotracheal intubation during a rapid sequence induction of anesthesia. Sixty patients were randomized to receive either thiopental 5 mg/kg and Sch 1.5 mg/kg (Group I), propofol 2 mg/kg and Sch 1.5 mg/kg (Group II), or propofol 2 mg/kg, alfentanil 40 micro gram/kg, and Sch 1.5 mg/kg (Group III). The IOP was measured continuously from baseline awake (control) values until 15 s after successful intubation. All three groups had a significant decrease in IOP with the induction of anesthesia. Succinylcholine produced a consistant increase in IOP from the postinduction low in Groups I and II, but this increase was not significantly higher than baseline. The postintubation IOPs in Groups I and II were significantly higher than baseline (P < 0.001). During the entire study period, the IOP in Group III never increased above baseline. The IOP in Groups I and II had already begun to decline by 15 s postintubation, suggesting that laryngoscopy and intubation have the greatest effect on increasing IOP. We conclude that the combination of propofol and alfentanil prevents the increase in IOP from Sch as well as the increase associated with endotracheal intubation during a rapid sequence induction of anesthesia. (Anesth Analg 1996;83:814-7)
Diagnosis of liver nodules observed in chronic liver disease patients during ultrasound screening for early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma

OBJECTIVES:The aim of our study was to evaluate the nature of focal liver lesions detected during the ultrasound follow-up of a population (prevalently anti-hepatitis C virus [anti-HCV] positive) with chronic liver disease.METHODS:The study population consisted of 1827 consecutive newly diagnosed chronic liver disease cases without liver nodules at enrollment. Patients were screened at 4-month intervals by ultrasound and serum α-fetoprotein assessment. All lesions detected on imaging studies (except those accompanied by diagnostic α-fetoprotein levels) were subjected to biopsy (histology and cytology). RESULTS:During the 7-yr follow-up period (mean = 43.1 months), one or more solid focal lesions were found in 287 patients. α-Fetoprotein was diagnostic for hepatocellular carcinoma in 51 patients. Ultrasound-guided fine-needle biopsy was performed in the remaining 236 patients, yielding a diagnosis in 214: 198 hepatocellular carcinomas, 11 dysplastic nodules, and five B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (all confined to the liver and all in patients with chronic HCV infection). Twenty-two patients with nondiagnostic biopsies received diagnoses of hepatocellular carcinoma (20) or dysplastic nodules (two) based on arteriography or surgical biopsy.CONCLUSIONS:Focal lesions arising in patients with HCV-related chronic liver disease can be other than hepatocellular carcinoma, and ultrasound-guided fine-needle biopsy plays an important role in their diagnosis. The prevalence of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in this selected population was 0.31%. The fact that all five lymphoma patients had cirrhosis related to hepatitis C strengthens the hypothesis of an etiological correlation between the latter infection and B-cell lymphoproliferative disorders.
Learning from Experience and Learning from Others: An Exploration of Learning and Spillovers in Wartime Shipbuilding

A new data set facilitates study of learning spillovers in World War II shipbuilding. Our results contain two principal but contrasting themes. First, learning spillovers were a significant source of productivity growth, and may have contributed more than conventional learning effects. Second, the size of the learning externalities across yards, as measured by Spence's theta, were small. These findings, which are not mutually inconsistent, suggest an optimistic view of learning spillovers: they are a significant source of productivity growth, but the market failures induced by learning externalities may be modest.
The New Basel Accord and Questions for Research

The New Basel Accord for bank capital regulation is designed to better align regulatory capital to the underlying risks by encouraging better and more systematic risk management practices, especially in the area of credit risk. We provide an overview of the objectives, analytical foundations and main features of the Accord and then open the door to some research questions provoked by the Accord. We see these questions falling into three groups: What is the impact of the proposal on the global banking system through possible changes in bank behavior; a set of issues around risk analytics such as model validation, correlations and portfolio aggregation, operational risk metrics and relevant summary statistics of a bank's risk profile; issues brought about by Pillar 2 (supervisory review) and Pillar 3 (public disclosure).
Offenders in the post-industrial labour market : from the underclass to the undercaste?

UK policy makers have increasingly sought to improve the employment prospects of offenders to help reduce re-offending. Yet the past 40 years have witnessed profound changes in the nature of work. This article examines how offenders have been affected by economic transformation and the possible implications for re-offending. The author finds that the possession of a criminal record was a minor inconvenience to finding work in the industrial labour market of the 1960s. However, deindustrialisation and the growing service intensity of the economy have relegated many to the margins of the labour market with potentially profound implications for re-offending.
Counting angels: a comparison of personnel and HR specialists

This article uses data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey to explore the extent to which the characteristics and job-related activities of specialists who use the title 'human resources' differ from those who use the title 'personnel'. The results demonstrate that specialists using the HR title are better qualified than those using the personnel title and they are more involved with strategic planning. Additionally, employee development is more likely to be included in strategic plans, and there is slightly greater evidence of devolution of responsibility to supervisors where the specialist uses the HR rather than the personnel title. Finally, several practices commonly associated with HRM, such as personality tests, attitude surveys and off-the-job training, are more likely to have been adopted in workplaces that have an HR specialist than in those that have a personnel specialist.
A note on corporate strategy and capital structure

The relationships between capital structure and corporate strategy in previous U.S. and Australian empirical studies, which use different definitions of capital structure, and hence have different functional relationships, are considered. A model using the U.S. specification with the Australian data is estimated, for which previous conclusions relating to profit are confirmed. The relationship between strategy and capital structure is thus shown to be less than robust. The conclusion that debt/equity ratios of highly diversified firms are more strongly affected by firm‐level variables is supported. An explanation that the capital market rewards focused firms because they are easier to understand and price is offered.
Kinetic mechanism of elongation factor Ts-catalyzed nucleotide exchange in elongation factor Tu.

The interaction of Escherichia coli elongation factor Tu (EF-Tu) with elongation factor Ts (EF-Ts) and guanine nucleotides was studied by the stopped-flow technique, monitoring the fluorescence of tryptophan 184 in EF-Tu or of the mant group attached to the guanine nucleotide. Rate constants of all association and dissociation reactions among EF-Tu, EF-Ts, GDP, and GTP were determined. EF-Ts enhances the dissociation of GDP and GTP from EF-Tu by factors of 6 x 10(4) and 3 x 10(3), respectively. The loss of Mg(2+) alone, without EF-Ts, accounts for a 150-300-fold acceleration of GDP dissociation from EF-Tu.GDP, suggesting that the disruption of the Mg(2+) binding site alone does not explain the EF-Ts effect. Dissociation of EF-Ts from the ternary complexes with EF-Tu and GDP/GTP is 10(3)-10(4) times faster than from the binary complex EF-Tu.EF-Ts, indicating different structures and/or interactions of the factors in the binary and ternary complexes. Rate constants of EF-Ts binding to EF-Tu in the free or nucleotide-bound form or of GDP/GTP binding to the EF-Tu.EF-Ts complex range from 0.6 x 10(7) to 6 x 10(7) M(-1) s(-1). At in vivo concentrations of nucleotides and factors, the overall exchange rate, as calculated from the elemental rate constants, is 30 s(-1), which is compatible with the rate of protein synthesis in the cell.
Portfolio Construction and Performance Measurement when Returns are Non-Normal

The foundation of popular approaches to portfolio construction and performance measurement lies in the mean-variance framework of Markowitz (1952, 1959). However, the suitability of such approaches in practice is questionable in light of considerable evidence of non-normalities in returns. This paper explores the potential usefulness of a non-parametric approach to portfolio construction and performance measurement recently proposed by Stutzer (2000). The Portfolio Performance Index (PPI) is based on the notion that investors associate risk with the failure to achieve a target return. Stutzer proposes that portfolio construction and performance measurement be approached by calculating the decay rate in the probability that a given portfolio will underperform its designated benchmark. By comparing the PPI and Sharpe ratio metrics, this paper presents preliminary evidence of the economic significance of non-normalities in Australian equity returns, and documents the impact of such on portfolio construction and performance evaluation practice.
Choosing the Right Parents: Changes in the Intergenerational Transmission of Inequality between 1980 and the Early 1990s

This paper uses the General Social survey and the comparison between the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Men and of Youth to measure how returns to young men's family background have changed from the late 1970's to the late 1980's and early 1990's. Coming from a wealthy family and having a well-educated father who worked in a high-prestige occupation were much more powerful predictors of a young man's success in the later period. In contrast, maternal education was less important in determining a young man's income and educational attainment. Rising returns to education coupled with a constant relation between family background and education explains most of the rising importance of family background.
Asset Trading, Transaction Costs and the Equity Premium

A model is developed that attempts to explain the historical size of the U.S. equity premium by distinguishing between gross and net returns accruing to agents. The model derived by Mehra and Prescott (1985) is augmented with a bid-ask spread, calibrated and simulated. Equity premia in the order of 3-4% are generated for plausible values of the transactions parameters. This contrasts with Mehra and Prescott, who find a maximum equity premium of 0.4% while the historic equity premium has been about 6.2%. Estimates of the bid-ask spread are obtained using GMM and tests of the overidentifying restrictions are not rejected for several lists of instrumental variables. Copyright 1994 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Population Change and Economic Growth in Africa

The lead institutions for the NTA project are the Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging at the University of California at Berkeley and the East-West Center. Regional centers are based at the East-West Center in Honolulu, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in Santiago, the African Economic Research Consortium in Nairobi, and the Institute for Future Studies in Stockholm.
Developing and evaluating the student assessment system in the preclinical problem‐based curriculum at Sherbrooke

BACKGROUND: Students' learning was used as an outcome measure in the first phases of the major curriculum reform started in 1987 by the Universite de Sherbrooke Faculty of Medicine, which shifted from a traditional to a student-centered, problem-based learning (PBL) and community-oriented program. The system for evaluating preclinical students' learning is intended to reinforce the integration of basic and clinical sciences. METHOD: To discover whether the evaluation system was fulfilling its intended goals, the authors used data from the classes of 1991-1993 to assess the reliability and validity of three evaluation instruments. The three instruments were (1) written examinations composed of multiple-choice questions (MCQs), short-answer questions (SAQs), and problem-analysis questions (PAQs); (2) PBL tutor rating forms that evaluate students' reasoning skills, communication and group-interaction skills, and autonomy and humanism; and (3) clinical skills evaluations, including objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs). The weights allocated to the instruments reflected how the faculty valued each evaluation dimension in each of the three phases of the preclinical curriculum. RESULTS: Reliability indexes improved throughout the system implementation. The written examinations proved to have content validity according to the PBL learning objectives. As evaluated by students, the PAQs were found to be at a taxonomic level that assessed ability to analyze information a third of the time in the first year of implementation of the PBL curriculum and 17% in the second year. Variations and correlations of students' mean performances across instructional units and between the evaluation instruments led to the development of a student longitudinal performance profile to be used before yearly promotion decisions are proposed. The profile was introduced in the fifth year of PBL implementation. CONCLUSION: The system allows students to learn higher-taxonomic-level content and fulfills the institution's social responsibility of judging program outcomes and promoting qualified students, although evaluation by PBL tutors is still psychometrically questionable and the measurement of students' reasoning and ability to analyze problems is still an unfinished evaluation task.
The ‘compensation’ thesis, as exemplified by the case of the Chinese central bank

This paper extends the theory of demand-led money supply endogeneity to the case of an open economy with a fixed exchange rate. This theory is contrasted to the standard Mundell-Fleming view. In the compensation approach advocated here, central banks are able to set interest rates, even in a fixed exchange rate regime, either because there are automatic market mechanisms that will induce the private sector to act in such a way that changes in foreign reserves will be compensated by opposite changes in central bank claims over the domestic economy, or because the central bank will engage in endogenous sterilization operations in its efforts to enforce its benchmark interest rate. Analyzing the balance sheet of the Chinese central bank, we find that the large rise in foreign reserves on the asset side is compensated by large positive changes in items of the liability side, mainly bonds issued by the central bank. Foreign reserves are not cointegrated with the monetary base, meaning that there is no long-run relationship between foreign exchange reserves and the supply of base money. We also find no long-run relation between foreign exchange reserves and the consumer price index.
Regulation of Activin A, Inhibin A, and Follistatin Production in Human Amnion and Choriodecidual Explants by Inflammatory Mediators

Objective: To determine the effects of inflammatory mediators on the production of activin A, inhibin A, and the binding protein follistatin in term amnion and chroidecidual tissues. Methods: The effects of interleukin-1β (IL-1β; 1 ng/mL), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α; 10 ng/mL), and bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LSP; 5 μg/mL) on production rates of activin A, inhibin A, and follistatin by term choriodecidual and amnion membranes in explant culture were determined using specific enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assays. Results: All explants (n = 6 placentas) produced detectable amounts of activin A, inhibin A, and follistatin under basal conditions; choriodecidual production rates were more than tenfold higher than amnion rates. In amnion explants, activin A production was stimulated by IL-1β and TNF-α to 450 ± 155.4% and 531 ± 170.8% of control, respectively (mean ± standard error of the mean; P < .05 by analysis of variance), whereas production of inhibition and follistatin was stimulated to a much more modest extent. Similar responses were observed in the choriodecidual explants. Lipopolysaccharide had no significant effect on amnion activin A production, but stimulated choriodecidual production to 290 ± 34% of control. Lipopolysaccharide exerted only limited effects on inhibin A and follistatin production. Conclusions: Treatment with proinflammatory mediators resulted in a preferential increase in activin A production compared with that of inhibin A or follistatin. These findings suggest that inflammation of the gestational membranes could result in increased local activin. A production and bioactivity.
Micro-finance evangelism, 'destitute women', and the hard selling of a new anti-poverty formula

This article challenges the recent uncritical enthusiasm for the potential of micro-finance institutions to reduce poverty. It is argued that, although understanding about how to design anti-poverty financial intermediation has improved, the current campaign to increase resource allocation in this sector may undermine the very sustainability that is being sought. Further, studies of the impact of micro-enterprise credit suggest that it is not necessarily beneficial to very poor people. Interventions in the provision of financial services should not be made without locally specific analysis of the functions of existing savings and credit facilities. An emphasis on scale acts as a disincentive to such analysis, and increases the risk of the reemergence of a 'blueprint' approach to anti-poverty action.
Statistical analysis of polarimetric characteristics for oil spill classification: The special case of DWH

In this paper a polarimetric SAR data study is undertaken over the critical and peculiar case of the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill accident occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. It is a complex case that still calls for deeper physical/chemical characterization due to its special nature. Such an oil spill accident is in fact related to a deep/ultra-deep sea drilling, that although of paramount interest in gas and oil exploitation, need special care and safety actions to manage high oil pressure and potential vast environmental oil spill long-term and short-term impact.
Arbiters of Waste: Date Labels, the Consumer and Knowing Good, Safe Food

The importance of date labelling in informing both retailers and consumers how long a food will remain edible, safe and of sufficient quality makes it a prime site for the identification of, and intervention in, food waste. This paper examines the historical and spatial evolution of the date labelling system in the UK. The paper shows how reforms to date marking have occurred in response to shifting concerns about food quality, safety and latterly waste. It distinguishes four periods during which labels moved from an internal stock control mechanism to a consumer protection mechanism, a food safety device and recently emerged as a key element in the fight against food waste. Contributing to recent sociological studies of food labelling, the paper charts changing understandings of the role of the label in mediating between consumers, the food industry and regulators. It shows how regulatory objects such as date labels materialize societal concerns about food and situates contemporary efforts to reform date labelling in relation to prior articulations of consumer, government and industry interests.
Pedagogical practices in the teaching of early literacy in Spain: voices from the classroom and from the official curricula

Children’s success in learning to read in the first grade is crucial for their ultimate success in schooling. This study aimed at identifying self‐declared practices in preschool and first grade in Spain and contrasting these practices with the official recommendations for the initial teaching of reading and writing. A characterisation of the ways of teaching and of the broader institutional context which can support or hinder teachers’ work is fundamental for determining the best conditions for successful literacy learning. A 30‐item questionnaire was used to collect teachers’ preferences on a six‐point Likert scale describing the frequency with which they reported adopting a certain practice in four areas: (1) organisation of the class, (2) planning, (3) activities and content, and (4) evaluation. A total of 2250 teachers, 1193 from preschool and 1057 from first year of primary school from nine geographic areas of Spain responded to the questionnaire. A cluster analysis of teachers’ responses revealed three practice profiles. The first gathers teachers’ preferences for explicit instructional practices, highly focused on the learning outcomes but less concerned with autonomous writing and occasional learning. The second brings together situational practices, more concerned with spontaneous writing and occasional learning than with explicit instruction and learning outcomes. The third reunites multidimensional practices focusing both on explicit instruction and leaning outcomes and on autonomous writing. The distribution of these practice profiles differed significantly with the teacher’s age, school level (preschool or primary school), type of school (private, public or subsidised), the location of the school, level of participation in in‐training service and the self‐declared methodology for teaching literacy. In the official recommendations, Andalusia and Catalonia support practices included under the situational oriented profile whereas Madrid appears more closely aligned with the instructional profile of practices