Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Maximizing Harvested Energy for Full-Duplex SWIPT System With Power Splitting

In this paper, we consider simultaneous wireless information and power transfer in a full-duplex (FD) communication system consisting of one FD access point A (FD-A) and one FD device B (FD-B), each being equipped with a pair of transmitter-receiver antennas for signal transmission and reception respectively. The power splitting (PS) scheme is adopted at FD-B to receive information and energy concurrently. In order to maximize the energy harvested by FD-B while considering the constraints of signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) and maximum transmit power at both nodes, we jointly design the optimal transmit power of FD-A and FD-B, as well as the PS ratio of FD-B. Unfortunately, the primal problem is non-convex and is not always feasible with different parameters. Thus, we first present a set of conditions, under which the feasibility of the primal problem is guaranteed. Then, we derive the closed form of the optimal solution with the aid of analyzing the feasible region of the problem. Furthermore, the influences of the parameters on the maximum harvested energy are theoretically analyzed. Finally, simulation results are provided to verify the optimality of the proposed closed-form solution, to validate the analysis of the impact of parameters on the maximum harvested energy and to show the effectiveness of the proposed design, respectively.
Metacognition in patients with anorexia nervosa, dieting and non-dieting women: a preliminary study.

OBJECTIVE To explore metacognition in women with anorexia nervosa (AN), dieting and non-dieting women. METHOD A cross-sectional study between groups design compared women with AN (n = 15), normal dieters (n = 17) and non-dieters (n = 18). A semi-structured interview was used to explore presence and content of explicit metacognitions and use of metacognitive control strategies. RESULTS Explicit metacognitions and metacognitive control strategies were present in all three groups of women. There were group differences in amount and function of metacognitive activity and trends in the qualitative data suggested participants with AN believed that their thoughts were abnormal and uncontrollable. They used six metacognitive strategies more than control groups and were less successful at using thought re-appraisal and attending to body and others. Half of participants with AN reported using these strategies to deliberately make themselves feel worse. DISCUSSION It is suggested that metacognitive activity may play a role in the maintenance of AN, particularly in reinforcing negative self-evaluations.
‘A Minute’s a Life-Time in Fast-Food!’: Managerial Job Quality in the Quick Service Restaurant Sector

The fast-food sector remains significantly under researched relative to its size and importance. Drawing on qualitative data this article explores the nature of managerial work in a market leading organisation. The research speaks to important contemporary debates vis-a-vis managerial job quality in routinised service sector work and the compatibility of such jobs with key quality of working life (QWL) criteria (e.g. opportunities for skills development, decision latitude, voice and meaning). The theoretical contribution of the article lies in the rigour of the analytical lens and exploration of how objective QWL criteria are coloured by subjective expectations and social processes to produce nuanced and unanticipated outcomes, for example accounts of rewarding, interesting and meaningful work notwithstanding severe structural constraints and bureaucratic rigidities.
Risk parity portfolio optimization under a Markov regime-switching framework

We formulate and solve a risk parity optimization problem under a Markov regime-switching framework to improve parameter estimation and to systematically mitigate the sensitivity of optimal portfolios to estimation error. A regime-switching factor model of returns is introduced to account for the abrupt changes in the behaviour of economic time series associated with financial cycles. This model incorporates market dynamics in an effort to improve parameter estimation. We proceed to use this model for risk parity optimization and also consider the construction of a robust version of the risk parity optimization by introducing uncertainty structures to the estimated market parameters. We test our model by constructing a regime-switching risk parity portfolio based on the Fama–French three-factor model. The out-of-sample computational results show that a regime-switching risk parity portfolio can consistently outperform its nominal counterpart, maintaining a similar ex post level of risk while delivering higher-than-nominal returns over a long-term investment horizon. Moreover, we present a dynamic portfolio rebalancing policy that further magnifies the benefits of a regime-switching portfolio.
High ubiquitous mitochondrial creatine kinase expression in hepatocellular carcinoma denotes a poor prognosis with highly malignant potential

We previously reported the increased serum mitochondrial creatine kinase (MtCK) activity in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), mostly due to the increase in ubiquitous MtCK (uMtCK), and high uMtCK mRNA expression in HCC cell lines. We explored the mechanism(s) and the relevance of high uMtCK expression in HCC. In hepatitis C virus core gene transgenic mice, known to lose mitochondrial integrity in liver and subsequently develop HCC, uMtCK mRNA and protein levels were increased in HCC tissues but not in non‐tumorous liver tissues. Transient overexpression of ankyrin repeat and suppressor of cytokine signaling box protein 9 (ASB9) reduced uMtCK protein levels in HCC cells, suggesting that increased uMtCK levels in HCC cells may be caused by increased gene expression and decreased protein degradation due to reduced ASB9 expression. The reduction of uMtCK expression by siRNA led to increased cell death, and reduced proliferation, migration and invasion in HCC cell lines. Then, consecutive 105 HCC patients, who underwent radiofrequency ablation with curative intent, were enrolled to analyze their prognosis. The patients with serum MtCK activity >19.4 U/L prior to the treatment had significantly shorter survival time than those with serum MtCK activity ≤19.4 U/L, where higher serum MtCK activity was retained as an independent risk for HCC‐related death on multivariate analysis. In conclusion, high uMtCK expression in HCC may be caused by hepatocarcinogenesis per se but not by loss of mitochondrial integrity, of which ASB9 could be a negative regulator, and associated with highly malignant potential to suggest a poor prognosis. © 2013 UICC
Access to cancer drugs in Canada: looking beyond coverage decisions.

OBJECTIVE To examine variation in patients' access to a set of cancer drugs through publicly funded provincial drug programs. DATA SOURCES/STUDY DESIGN We surveyed provincial drug program managers about their highest-expenditure intravenous and oral cancer drugs. We then investigated whether the same cancer drugs account for the highest expenditures across the provincial programs. We also compared the rates at which these drugs are accessed through these programs. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS While there is moderate consistency in the selection of cancer drugs that account for the highest provincial expenditures, considerable differences were found in the rates at which some drugs are accessed across provincial programs. CONCLUSIONS The study demonstrates the existence of interprovincial variation in publicly funded access to cancer drugs even after these drugs have been approved for public coverage.
Expression and prognostic significance of survivin in de novo acute myeloid leukaemia

Survivin is an inhibitor of apoptosis (programmed cell death) overexpressed in various human cancers, but undetectable in normal differentiated tissues. A potential distribution and prognostic significance of survivin in patients with de novo acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) was investigated. By immunofluoresence of bone‐marrow specimens and peripheral blood mononuclear cells, survivin was detected in 75 out of 125 interpretable AML cases (60%), with reactivity in 50–90% of AML cells. Survivin expression correlated with a lower white blood cell count (WBC) (P = 0·008 by the Mann–Whitney test) and was associated, in the 55 cases of FAB M0/M1/M2, with leukaemic granulocytic maturation (one out of five M/L0, 11 out of 22 M/L1 and 23 out of 28M/L2; P = 0·007 by the Fisher test). In 69 patients treated with the Acute Leukaemia French Association (ALFA) 9000 protocol, survivin expression was significantly associated with a lower WBC (P = 0·03 by the Mann–Whitney test) and favourable/intermediate cytogenetics (P = 0·03 by the Fisher test). There was no significant difference in complete remission rate or overall survival between survivin‐positive and survivin‐negative AML patients (P = 0·15 by the log‐rank test). However, survivin expression became an independent negative prognostic factor for survival when adjusted with the Cox model for established prognostic factors in AML (cytogenetics, age and WBC) or for the ALFA 9000 treatment arm (RR = 2·8 and P = 0·026, by the likelihood‐ratio test). These data suggest that survivin expression may be considered as a new unfavourable prognostic factor of de novo AML and suggest a role for apoptosis inhibition in influencing disease outcome.
Detection of heart sounds S1 and S2 using optimized S-transform and back — Propagation Algorithm

This paper describes a method for the detection of heart sounds S1 and S2 using Back-Propagation Algorithm (BPA). The proposed method works satisfactorily on the heart sounds with murmur or noisy data. The work can be divided into four main parts: (i) localization by optimized S-transform, (ii) boundary detection of heart sounds S1 and S2 based on Shannon energy of S-transform, (iii) feature extraction using Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), and (iv) classification using ANN tool known as BPA. In this paper, we have compared the performance parameters like sensitivity and specificity of BPA results with other existing methods and improvement is observed in their values.
Effects of Surgeon Volume and Hospital Volume on Quality of Care in Hospitals

A growing body of evidence indicates that certain surgical procedures exhibit a “volume-outcome” relationship in which a higher volume of patients undergoing a particular procedure at a hospital is associated with better outcomes for those patients. The proportion of a hospital's patients operated on by low-volume or less experienced surgeons also may be associated with poor patient outcomes and thus contribute to the hospital “volume-outcome” relationship. This paper analyzes the influence of hospital volume and the proportion of a hospital's patients operated on by low-volume surgeons on patient outcome for 10 procedures, controlling for other selected factors that may influence outcomes. The analysis is based on 503,662 patient abstracts from 757 hospitals. Results indicate that both hospital volume and the proportion of patients operated on by low-volume surgeons are related to quality of care as measured by patient outcomes. Higher hospital volume is positively related to better patient outcomes. These findings are consistent with earlier hospital “volume-outcome” research and add an additional set of procedures using more recent data to the evidence. Unlike previous research on surgeon volume, a positive relationship was found between higher percentage of patients operated on by low-volume surgeons and poorer hospital quality.
Measuring regional social inclusion performances in the EU: Looking for unity in diversity

This study measures and benchmarks regional social inclusion performances in Europe using a composite index constructed on the basis of the commonly agreed sub-indicators of the Europe 2020 headline indicators. The multidimensional nature of these issues and the disparate social policy priorities of nations/regions in addressing them call for a reconciliatory performance evaluation framework, for which this article advocates the use of benefit-of-the-doubt (BoD) weighting. Based on the composite scores, leading and lagging regions in social inclusion are identified and the impact of regional contextual characteristics is examined. Overall results show that regions of Denmark and Sweden are consistently strong performers, while the Continental regions of Italy and Spain typically perform poorly. As to the poverty and social exclusion determinants, results show that low educational attainment and a high percentage of single-parent households relate negatively to regional social inclusion.
Depression and inflammatory bowel disease: Findings from two nationally representative Canadian surveys

&NA; Most studies of depression and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have been drawn from clinical populations or from samples selected from the membership of Crohn's and ulcerative colitis community organizations. This study determined the prevalence and correlates of depression in people with IBD or a similar bowel disorder from 2 nationally representative Canadian surveys. In the Canadian Community Health Survey, conducted in 2000 through 2001, there were 3076 respondents who reported that they had “a bowel disorder such as Crohn's disease or colitis” that had lasted ≥6 months and had been diagnosed by a health professional. The National Population Health Survey, conducted from 1996 through 1997, had 1438 respondents who reported that they had such a condition. Within each subsample, bivariate analyses were conducted to compare the depressed and nondepressed individuals. Logistic regression analyses also were conducted using the Canadian Community Health Survey 1.1 data set. The 12‐month period prevalence of depression among individuals with IBD and similar bowel disorders was comparable in the 2 data sets (16.3% and 14.7%). Depression rates were higher among female respondents, those without partners, younger respondents, those who reported greater pain, and those who had functional limitations. Seventeen percent of depressed respondents had considered suicide in the past 12 months; an additional 30% had considered suicide at an earlier time. Only 40% of depressed individuals were using antidepressants. Individuals with IBD and similar bowel disorders experience rates of depression that are triple those of the general population. It is important for clinicians to assess depression and suicidal ideation among their patients with active IBD symptoms, particularly among those reporting moderate to severe pain.
Mainstreaming the environment through appraisal: Integrative governance or logics of disintegration?

In both national and international circles, environmental policy makers are repeatedly faced with the challenges posed by scientific, institutional and administrative fragmentation and complexity. Within this context, appraisal – of policies, programmes and projects – has been repeatedly advocated as a key integration tool that can help policy makers navigate such fragmentation and complexity by better integrating environmental concerns into decision making. In this paper, we examine the challenges that are posed for integrative governance, defined as the theories and practices that focus on the relationships between policy instruments and/or governance systems, from the perspective of efforts to integrate environmental considerations into all sectors of decision making via appraisal. Drawing on institutional theory, we explore the cross-sectoral and multi-level institutional challenges surrounding the integration of environmental considerations across different levels of appraisal. We do so by examining appraisal in the European Commission, and at the national, regional and local level in the UK. We argue that conflicts between different ‘logics of integration’ – or disintegration – routinely hamper the integration of environmental concerns between governance levels and across governance sectors. These logics include differences between appraisal systems; between appraising in theory and in practice; between different sectors and between the fragmented professional logics of different policy actors.
Effects of Metal and the Phytyl Chain on Chlorophyll Derivatives: Physicochemical Evaluation for Photodynamic Inactivation of Microorganisms

Chlorophyll compounds and their derivatives containing metal or phytyl chain can be used as photosensitizer in photodynamic inactivation of microorganisms (PDI). So, the physicochemical properties and antimicrobial effect of chlorophyll derivatives were investigated: Mg‐chlorophyll (Mg‐Chl), Zn‐chlorophyll (Zn‐Chl), Zn‐chlorophyllide (Zn‐Chlde), Cu‐chlorophyll (Cu‐Chl), pheophytin (Pheo) and pheophorbide (Pheid). The photobleaching experiments showed photostability according to Cu‐Chl > Pheo ∼ Pheid ≫ Zn‐Chl ∼ Zn‐Chlde > Mg‐Chl. This order was discussed in terms of metal and the phytyl chain presences. Pheid and Zn‐Chl in aqueous Tween 80 solution exhibited highest singlet oxygen yield compared with the other derivatives. Chlorophyll derivatives (CD) with phytyl chain was limited by the self‐aggregation phenomenon at high concentrations, even in micellar systems (Tween 80 and P‐123). The antimicrobial effect of CD derivatives was investigated against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Candida albicans and Artemia salina. Pheid showed the best results against all organisms tested, Zn‐Chlde was an excellent bactericide in the dark and Cu‐Chl had no PDI effect. No correlation with CD uptake by microorganisms and darkness cytotoxicity was found. The physicochemical properties allied to bioassays results indicate that Mg‐Chl, Pheo, Zn‐Chl and Pheid are good candidates for PDI.
Restarting convergence to reinvigorate output legitimacy: is the EMU Waiting for Godot, again?

ABSTRACT Relying on the insights of the Comparative Political Economy (CPE) literature and, mostly, from the structural institutional features implied by Varieties of Capitalism, this article challenges the idea of restarting convergence to have a smoothly functioning Eurozone. In literature, Europeanization and convergence have commonly been conceived as strictly related concepts. This conception persists once the institutional way forward from the crisis – epitomized by the Five Presidents’ Report – is also considered. A close investigation of the interrelation among Europeanization, convergence and output legitimacy reveals that the emphasis on convergence overshadowed the resilience of the domestic political economies structures. A support indicator for EC/EU membership, based on Eurobarometer data, is therefore built to display the functioning of this relationship. Eventually, the institutional heterogeneity characterizing the domestic political economies is individuated to be an important determinant of the cross-country paths of divergence that became visible even before the eruption of the Euro-crisis.
Changing gull diet in a changing world: A 150‐year stable isotope (δ13C, δ15N) record from feathers collected in the Pacific Northwest of North America

The world's oceans have undergone significant ecological changes following European colonial expansion and associated industrialization. Seabirds are useful indicators of marine food web structure and can be used to track multidecadal environmental change, potentially reflecting long‐term human impacts. We used stable isotope (δ13C, δ15N) analysis of feathers from glaucous‐winged gulls (Larus glaucescens) in a heavily disturbed region of the northeast Pacific to ask whether diets of this generalist forager changed in response to shifts in food availability over 150 years, and whether any detected change might explain long‐term trends in gull abundance. Sampled feathers came from birds collected between 1860 and 2009 at nesting colonies in the Salish Sea, a transboundary marine system adjacent to Washington, USA and British Columbia, Canada. To determine whether temporal trends in stable isotope ratios might simply reflect changes to baseline environmental values, we also analysed muscle tissue from forage fishes collected in the same region over a multidecadal timeframe. Values of δ13C and δ15N declined since 1860 in both subadult and adult gulls (δ13C, ~ 2–6‰; δ15N, ~4–5‰), indicating that their diet has become less marine over time, and that birds now feed at a lower trophic level than previously. Conversely, forage fish δ13C and δ15N values showed no trends, supporting our conclusion that gull feather values were indicative of declines in marine food availability rather than of baseline environmental change. Gradual declines in feather isotope values are consistent with trends predicted had gulls consumed less fish over time, but were equivocal with respect to whether gulls had switched to a more garbage‐based diet, or one comprising marine invertebrates. Nevertheless, our results suggest a long‐term decrease in diet quality linked to declining fish abundance or other anthropogenic influences, and may help to explain regional population declines in this species and other piscivores.
Monetary Authority's Transparency and Income Inequality

This paper analyzes how transparency from the monetary authority can affect the income inequality. The contribution is twofold. In the first part, we develop a theoretical model that considers heterogenous agent shopping‐time economy with a lack of transaction technology between rich and poor to observe the effect of central bank transparency on income inequality. The second part provides empirical evidence through panel data methodology that draws on 37 developing countries for the period 1992 to 2012. Our findings indicate that, in general, the monetary authority's transparency is an important tool to reduce income inequality between rich and poor when there are some advantages for the first group.
The cytological grading of malignant neoplasms of the breast and its correlation with the histological grading.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Breast carcinoma is one of the leading causes of malignancy in females. The diagnosis of breast carcinoma is often made by fine needle aspiration cytology. Nuclear grading is an important prognostic factor. It is important to grade breast carcinomas, which will provide valuable information to the treating oncologists to plan their management. The purpose of this study was to compare the cytological grading and typing with the histological grading and typing and the regional lymph node metastasis. METHODOLOGY This retrospective and prospective study was done on 60 cases with malignant and suspicious diagnoses on FNAC, which had histopathological correlations, from January 2004 to December 2007. The cytological grading was done by Robinson's Method and the histopathological grading was done by the modified Scarff Bloom Richardson method. Cytological and histological typings were also done. The statistical analysis was done by using the SPSS software: The Chi square test was used and a contingency tale analysis (cross tabs procedure) was also done. RESULTS The cytohistological grading correlation was accurate in 7 cases (100%) of grade 1, 22 cases (71%) of grade 3 and 9 cases (42.9%) of grade 2 cancers. The accuracy was 62.7% (P < 0.001). A higher cytological grade was associated with a nodal metastasis. (cc : 0.399, P < .006) The cytological typing was accurate in 44 cases out of the 60 cases. INTERPRETATION AND CONCLUSION The cytological grade correlated well with the histological grading accuracy (62.7%) and a higher grade was associated with a nodal metastasis (P < 0.006), Hence the cytological grading and typing should be routinely incorporated in the cytology reports and they can be of great value in guiding the choice of the treatment protocols.