Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical Assessment of Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis Pre- and Post-Surgical Intervention in a Division I Female College Gymnast: A Case Study

Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis is defined as a lateral and rotational curvature of the spine with an unknown origin. Scoliosis is diagnosed based on age of onset and clinical presentation. Physicians measure curve severity by Cobb’s angle, which is marked on an x-ray. Participation is sports, which require compressive and tensile forces on the spine increase risk of back-related injury, including scoliosis or the progression of scoliosis. Sports such as gymnastics have been shown to increase back pain; although, studies have found some participation in gymnastic activities helps in strengthening skeletal musculature and respiratory musculature, which benefits patients diagnosed with scoliosis. The purpose of this research is to explore the clinical assessment of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis preand post surgical intervention in a division I female college gymnast. The patient in this study is a 21-year-old female gymnast that was clinically diagnosed with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis at 20 years of age. The patient has competed in gymnastics since the age of six and currently underwent spinal fusion surgery to correct a scoliotic curve of 81 degrees that was creating breathing difficulties. Pulmonary function testing, joint range of motion measurements, and muscular power were clinically assessed one week prior to spinal fusion surgery and one year following curvature correction. Results expressed overall improvement in parameters tested along with reduction of pre-surgical symptoms, which were caused by the severe spinal curvature. CLINICAL ASSESSMENT OF ADOLESCENT IDIOPATHIC SCOLIOSIS 3
Is Financial Openness a Bad Thing? An Analysis on the Correlation Between Financial Liberalization and the Output Performance of Crisis-Hit Economies

This paper investigates the link between capital account openness and the output cost associated with a currency crisis. Although the Malaysian experience during the Asian crisis of 1997-98 made many researchers and policy makers interested in the effectiveness of a policy restricting crossborder financial transactions to minimize the output cost, this association has not been exposed to a thorough empirical investigation. The probit analysis in this paper shows that the higher the level of financial openness is, the less likely countries are to experience a currency crisis among industrialized and less developed countries. It is found that a higher level of financial openness prior to a crisis helps to reduce output losses for industrialized countries, but not for less developed or emerging market countries. It is also shown that the duration of post-crisis output contraction can be shorter when an industrialized country has a high level of financial openness, but for the group of EMGs the duration of output contraction can be lengthened if a country has more open capital accounts. However, once the country encounters a currency crisis, the effect of capital account openness differs depending on the level of development. The post-crisis level of financial openness helps industrialized countries to reduce the magnitude of output losses while it increases post-crisis output losses for emerging market and less developed countries. A higher rate of financial liberalization is also found to be detrimental to less developed countries. When the dynamics of output gaps after a crisis are investigated, it is found that the negative effect of a higher level of capital account openness lasts for at least three years for emerging market countries. In general, I have found that institutional development such as corruption, law and order, and bureaucratic quality, rather than the level of openness in financial markets, is important in lowering the size of post-crisis output losses for the groups of less developed or emerging market countries. Only the group of IDCs appears to be able to reap the effect of capital account liberalization in terms of reducing the size of post-crisis output losses. Moreover, Mahathir’s type of capital restriction policy immediately after the breakout of a crisis does not appear to be effective.
Sustainable development and climate change: Beyond mitigation and adaptation

This Viewpoint article reviews the two approaches to climate change, namely mitigation and adaptation, and examines the complex interrelationships between them, and between climate change and sustainable development. Adaptation is about reducing the effects of climate change on both human and natural systems; and mitigation is about reducing the causes of climate change by decreasing the anthropogenic impact on the climate system. The implications of an apparently warming world clearly mean that there is need for mitigation; but how effective will mitigation be, and how far are we prepared to go, to reconcile conflicting interests and tensions? Despite relatively slow progress, some forms of sustainable development have appeared, and these offer the best hope we have of mitigating human contribution to climate change, and adapting to its consequences. However, it is also necessary to view the issue of climate change as holistically as possible, whereby socio-economic objectives, needs and desires are reconciled with environmental limits, because science and technology are limited in their capacity to solve problems on a planetary scale.
Prevalence of glaucoma in Sunsari district of eastern Nepal.

AIMS To determine prevalence of glaucoma and glaucoma suspect in subjects 40 years and above in Sunsari district of eastern Nepal. METHODS A community based cross sectional study examining 1600 selected subjects was carried out. In all subjects best corrected visual acuity was determined. Oblique torch light test was used for anterior chamber depth evaluation. Intraocular pressure (IOP) measurements with Perkins tonometer and fundus examination were carried out in the community. Subjects diagnosed as glaucoma suspect were further evaluated in the hospital using slit lamp examination, gonioscopy and Goldmann perimetry. Glaucoma was defined by characteristic disc and visual field changes irrespective of the level of IOP. RESULTS Of 1600 subjects examined, the prevalence of glaucoma was found to be 0.938%. The prevalences of primary open angle glaucoma, primary angle closure glaucoma, secondary glaucoma and ocular hypertension were 0.562%, 0.125%, 0.250% and 0.500% respectively. Lens induced glaucoma accounted for all the cases of secondary glaucoma. CONCLUSION The prevalence of glaucoma in the Sunsari District of Nepal is 0.938%, which is lower than that reported in the neighboring regions. Lens induced glaucoma is highly prevalent as a cause of secondary glaucoma.
Intellectual Property Rights and the Knowledge Spillover Theory of Entrepreneurship

We develop a model in which stronger protection of intellectual property rights has an inverted U-shaped effect on innovation. Intellectual property rights protection allows the incumbent firms to capture part of the rents of commercial exploration that would otherwise accrue to the entrepreneurs. Stronger patent protection will increase the incentive to do R+D and generate new knowledge. This has a positive impact on entrepreneurship and innovation. However, after some point, further strengthening patent protection will reduce the returns to entrepreneurship sufficiently to reduce overall economic growth.
Performance of an N95 Filtering Facepiece Particulate Respirator and a Surgical Mask During Human Breathing: Two Pathways for Particle Penetration

The protection level offered by filtering facepiece particulate respirators and face masks is defined by the percentage of ambient particles penetrating inside the protection device. There are two penetration pathways: (1) through the faceseal leakage, and the (2) filter medium. This study aimed at differentiating the contributions of these two pathways for particles in the size range of 0.03–1 μm under actual breathing conditions. One N95 filtering facepiece respirator and one surgical mask commonly used in health care environments were tested on 25 subjects (matching the latest National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health fit testing panel) as the subjects performed conventional fit test exercises. The respirator and the mask were also tested with breathing manikins that precisely mimicked the prerecorded breathing patterns of the tested subjects. The penetration data obtained in the human subject- and manikin-based tests were compared for different particle sizes and breathing patterns. Overall, 5250 particle size- and exercise-specific penetration values were determined. For each value, the faceseal leakage-to-filter ratio was calculated to quantify the relative contributions of the two penetration pathways. The number of particles penetrating through the faceseal leakage of the tested respirator/mask far exceeded the number of those penetrating through the filter medium. For the N95 respirator, the excess was (on average) by an order of magnitude and significantly increased with an increase in particle size (p < 0.001): ∼7-fold greater for 0.04 μm, ∼10-fold for 0.1 μm, and ∼20-fold for 1 μm. For the surgical mask, the faceseal leakage-to-filter ratio ranged from 4.8 to 5.8 and was not significantly affected by the particle size for the tested submicrometer fraction. Facial/body movement had a pronounced effect on the relative contribution of the two penetration pathways. Breathing intensity and facial dimensions showed some (although limited) influence. Because most of the penetrated particles entered through the faceseal, the priority in respirator/mask development should be shifted from improving the efficiency of the filter medium to establishing a better fit that would eliminate or minimize faceseal leakage.
The Introduction of a Private Wealth Module in CAPP_DYN: an Overview.

Household saving rate in Italy declined over the last two decades.This trend still persists despite three pension reforms have been enacted since the beginning of the nineties. In this paper we search further evidence of general macroeconomic effects through the analysis of households behaviour. In the first part of the paper we use data from five surveys of the Bank of Italy Surveys of Household Income and Wealth (SHIW) to estimate the lifetime profiles of saving and wealth accumulation. Estimates show that the age profile of the propensity to save has been influenced more by cohort effects than by general trend effects; whereas the age profile of the ratios of financial assets to disposable income has been subject to relevant trend effects. In the second part of the paper we analyse the effects of pension reforms on saving behaviour of Italian Households. Firstly we use a difference-in-difference estimator in order to test whether the groups more severely hit by the reforms actually increased their saving rate relative to the other groups. Then we estimate the Social Security Net Wealth (SSWN) for each individual in the SHIW in the analysed period (1989-2000). Finally we estimate the substitution coefficient between SSWN and private wealth taking into account that the reaction of saving to a change in SSWN depends also on age of the individual. Our results show that the reduction of SSWN is unequally distributed across individuals. The cut is stronger for self employed, young workers and women. Most of the groups more severely hit by the reforms did not increase their saving rate relative to the control group: younger households, in particular, did not increase the saving rate. On the whole a reduction of one Euro in SSWN seems to induce, on the average, a compensating increase in private wealth by about fifty cents. The substitution coefficient between private and social security wealth is higher for the richest and oldest part of the sample. Finally when we split the sample observations by year we find that the more dramatised is the impact of the reform, the higher is the substitution coefficient.
China's Outward Direct Investment: Expanding Worldwide

China has become a capital-surplus economy and its overseas investment has grown apace. Although its outward investment is still small in absolute terms, especially compared to the huge inward flow, China's overseas enterprises have been quietly gaining importance as new sources of international capital. They are now globally diversified and involved in a wide variety of sectors, including banking, manufacturing and natural resource exploitation. In the coming years, Chinese outward investment is expected to accelerate. The free trade agreement signed between ASEAN and China will no doubt intensify Chinese outward investment to the region.
Instruction Decompressor Design for a VLIW Processor

The FlexCore processor is a wide instruction word processor, which allows the control of datapath elements at a very precise level. The FlexCore scheme offers full control over the architecture and helps to improve the overall performance. As the memory is very expensive in embedded systems both in terms of power and area, to gain the full advantages of long instruction word of the FlexCore we need to use the memory footprint very efficiently. To remedy this the instructions in the FlexCore processor memory are stored as application-specific, compressed instruction format (AS-ISA) which is then converted on-the-fly to a native, decompressed instruction format (N-ISA) by an instruction decompressor. This paper deals with the implementation of the instruction decompressor and the analysis of compression and decompression schemes used in the FlexCore processor. The instruction decompressor is designed and implemented in VHDL and synthesized using Cadence RTL compiler into three different process technologies 130-nm, 90-nm, and 65-mn provided by the STMicroelectronics. The synthesis results show that the design and implementation of instruction decompressor greatly impacts the performance of FlexCore in terms of power, area and timing. We show the impact of different parameters of compression scheme used for the implementation of instruction decompressor in hardware which was previously shown in software. These parameters include the formation of lookup table (LUT) groups, the size of LUTs and the LUT-Load instruction Interval meaning how often the LUTs needs to be updated and how many LUTs are updated through a single LUT-Load instruction.
Agricultural Extension Service and Input Application Intensity: Evidence from Ethiopia

This paper examines factors that influence agricultural input adoption in the northern part of Ethiopia. Using a 730 households survey data set, a Tobit model is estimated to explain the factors that influence farmers’ decision to adopt modern inputs or not. The factors found to significantly influence included: plot size, oxen ownership, gender, age and literacy status of the household head, adult labor force, total non-farm income, extension service and location variables. The results confirm the adoption theory.
Why Do People Use Debit Cards: Evidence from Checking Accounts

Debit cards are the fastest growing consumer payment method despite being more expensive and less versatile than credit cards. In this paper, we investigate some of the oft cited explanations for debit card use. Checking account data shows that debit card use is correlated with age, pay frequency, overdrafting, and ATM use, but not income, gender, crime, or expenditure. The data contain some signs that debit cards might be used as a method of spending restraint.
Testing the Language–Power Assumption of Critical Discourse Analysis: The Case of Israel's Legislative Discourse

Abstract. The growing interest in the relation between language and politics brings new assumptions and theoretical frameworks to the study of politics. This study presents a simple empirical test of a major assumption of the critical discourse analysis school: that power is a major factor in political discourse. It examines whether the discourse of Israeli members of parliament (Knesset) represents a view of the world through the prism of power or whether parliament members refer to the experience of similar democracies. We demonstrate that power is a strong and significant factor in Israeli legislative discourse through time and across issues while relevance plays no role. Résumé. L'intérêt grandissant que suscite le lien entre langage et politique, génère de nouvelles hypothèses et de nouvelles théories de l'étude du politique. Cette étude propose de tester l'une des principales hypothèses de l'analyse critique de discours, à savoir que le pouvoir serait un facteur essentiel du discours politique. Le discours des membres du parlement israélien (la Knesset) est analysé afin de déterminer s'il reflète une vision du monde à travers le prisme du pouvoir, ou si au contraire les membres du parlements se réfèrent plutôt à l'expérience d'autres démocraties sous différents angles, en particulier celui de la similaritê de leur travail parlementaire. Cette étude démontre que le pouvoir constitue un facteur important et significatif du discours législatif israélien, à la fois sur la longue durée et concernant une variété de sujets, alors que le facteur de la pertinence ne joue aucun rôle.
The Building Blocks to Measure Inflation

Price indices serve as measures of inflation, deflators for national accounts aggregates, the basis for escalation payments, terms of trade analysis, and much more. Good economic analysis requires a proper understanding of deficiencies in the practice of compiling these measures. Research by IMF economists has contributed to our understanding of what is good practice. An article in the IMF Research Bulletin in September 2006 outlined IMF research in this area. This article considers subsequent work, the focus of which is on the building blocks of price indices. Consumer price indexes (CPIs) are compiled in two stages. The first stage is the measurement of (unweighted) average price changes of well-specified items—for example, a 500-gram, pre-packed and sliced loaf of white bread with soft crust— using prices collected from a sample of representative outlets. Then, as a second stage, the CPI is compiled as a weighted average of these elementary indices for bread, sugar, mangos, electricity, shelter, television sets, haircuts and, of course, much more. The first stage elementary price indices are the building blocks of a CPI. Similar considerations apply to measuring purchasing power parity (PPP) across countries, with unweighted parity estimates for well-specified items forming the building blocks for the higher-level weighted aggregates. For export and import unit value indices (XMUVIs), the building Calls for the scaling up of aid flows to sub-Saharan Africa— notably at the Gleneagles Group of Eight Summit in 2005—underscored the need for a better understanding of the macroeconomic effects of aid and of the policies that are typically implemented by recipient countries in response to such flows. This article summarizes recent research on this topic. As aid has failed to surge, the article also discusses extensions to the related topics of resource booms and debt-led scaling up. Aid flows offer both opportunities and challenges to recipient countries. They may alleviate poverty and spur growth by financing much-needed public investment in infrastructure. But they may also hurt growth by inducing real exchange rate appreciation pressures, to the detriment of growth-promoting The IMF Research Bulletin is available exclusively as an online product. To sign up to receive a free e-mail notification when quarterly issues are posted, please subscribe at https://www.imf. org/ external/cntpst/index. aspx. Readers may also access the Bulletin at any time free of charge at http://www.imf. org/ researchbulletin.
The Business of Talk: Organizations in Action

Preface and Acknowledgements. Introduction. 1. Talk and Organization. 2. Organizations in Action. 3. Talk as Social Action. 4. The Interaction Order of Organizations. 5. Conversational Procedures and Organizational Practices. 6. Information, Interaction and Institution. 7. Organizational Agendas. 8. Local Logic and Organizational Rationality. 9. The Business of Talk. Appendix I: Notes on Transcription Conventions. Bibliography. Index.
Do Krishna Paksha (new moon phase) and Shukla Paksha (full moon phase) affect the Indian stock market? – A study of lunar cycles in the Bombay Stock Exchange

Indian culture has popularly believed that the moon has a close relation with human thinking and decision making. The impact of the moon on human behaviour has been an important aspect of research study. As stock market activity and movements are based on human behaviour and decision making, it is desirable to study its impact on stock market activity and movements. Indian culture describes lunar cycles as Shukla Paksha (the bright lunar cycle) and Krishna Paksha (the dark lunar cycle). This article studies the impact of lunar cycles on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The study uses the BSE Sensex data over a period of 17 years to study whether there are significant differences in the stock market activity and movements in the Shukla Paksha and Krishna Paksha. Based on the analysis, the article finds that the impact of lunar cycles on Indian stock markets is quite limited. After an introduction to lunar cycles, the article provides a literature review on the current research on lunar cycles and their impact on stock markets. The article then studies the impact of lunar cycles in relation to the BSE Sensex. The article provides inferences based on study and the implications of the study.
Credit Spreads and the Term Structure of Interest Rates

This paper analyzes the impact of macroeconomic announcements on the correlation between credit spreads and the term structure of interest rates. We propose to employ an extented version of the Constant Conditional Correlations framework of Bollerslev (1990) to describe the evolution of the first difference of the slope of the term structure. Our main empirical findings can be summarized as follow: (a) The credit spread and the level of the term structure are uncorrelated on macroeconomic announcement days. (b) The credit spread and the level of the term structure are negatively correlated. (c) The credit spread and the slope of the term structure are negatively correlated. (d) The process for the conditional variance of the credit spread is highly persistent. (e) The conditional variance of the credit spread is smaller on macroeconomic announcement days than on other days. The results, (a) in particular, provide important new information about how corporate bond asset pricing models should be specified.