Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Empirical Evidence from EU-28 Countries on Resilient Transport Infrastructure Systems and Sustainable Economic Growth

This paper examines the nexus between the main forms of transport, related investments, specific air pollutants, and sustainable economic growth. The research is important since transport may act as a facilitator of social, economic, and environmental development. Based on data retrieved from Eurostat, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and World Bank, the output of fixed-effects regressions for EU-28 countries over 1990–2016 reveals that road, inland waterways, maritime, and air transport infrastructure positively influence gross domestic product per capita (GDPC), though a negative link occurred in the case of railway transport. As concerning investments in transport infrastructure, the empirical results exhibit a positive impact on economic growth for every type of transport, except inland waterways. Besides, emissions of CO2 from all kind of transport, alongside other specific air pollutants, negatively influence GDPC. The fully modified and dynamic ordinary least squares panel estimation results reinforce the findings. Further, in the short-run, Granger causality based on panel vector error correction model pointed out a unidirectional causal link running from sustainable economic growth to inland waterways and maritime transport of goods, albeit a one-way causal link running from the volume of goods transported by air to GDPC. As well, the empirical results provide support one-way short-run links running from GDPC to investments in road and inland waterway transport infrastructure. In addition, a bidirectional short-run link occurred between carbon dioxide emissions from railway transport and GDPC, whereas unidirectional relations with economic growth were identified in the case of carbon dioxide emissions from road and domestic aviation. In the long-run, a bidirectional causal relation was noticed between the length of the railways lines, investments in railway transport infrastructure, and GDPC, as well as a two-way causal link between the gross weight of seaborne goods handled in ports and GDPC.
Energy dispatching of an isolated diesel-battery hybrid power system

In this paper, two control strategies involving "continuous" and "ON/OFF" operation of the diesel generator in the battery-integrated hybrid system are developed, implemented and compared. The main purpose of these modeled controlled strategies is to minimize the diesel generator operation cost in standalone electricity generation processes. The simulations have been performed using "fmincon" for the continuous operation and “intlinprog” for the ON/OFF operation strategy implemented in Matlab. A rural household and a base transceiver station have been used as case studies; and the daily operation cost obtained are compared to the scenario where the diesel generator is used alone to supply the same load demand. Sensitivity analyses have been conducted on the battery control settings as key parameters to find how changes in these parameters do impact the daily operation cost of the hybrid system. The results show that using the developed optimal energy dispatch models, significant fuel saving can be achieved compared to the case where the diesel is used alone to supply the same load requirements.
ORIGINAL RESEARCH—PAIN: Psychosexual Characteristics of Vestibulodynia Couples: Partner Solicitousness and Hostility are Associated with Pain

Introduction. Provoked vestibulodynia is a prevalent yet misunderstood women's sexual health issue. In particular, data concerning relationship characteristics and psychosexual functioning of partners of these women are scarce. Moreover, no research to date has examined the role of the partner in vestibulodynia. Aims. This study aimed to characterize and compare the psychosexual profiles of women with vestibulodynia and their partners, in addition to exploring whether partner-related variables correlated with women's pain and associ- ated psychosexual functioning. Methods. Forty-three couples in which the woman suffered from vestibulodynia completed self-report question- naires focusing on their sexual functioning, dyadic adjustment, and psychological adjustment. Women were diagnosed using the cotton-swab test during a standardized gynecological examination. They also took part in a structured interview during which they were asked about their pain during intercourse and frequency of intercourse. They also completed a questionnaire about their perceptions of their partners' responses to the pain. Main Outcome Measures. Dependent measures for both members of the couple included the Sexual History Form, the Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Scale and the Brief Symptom Inventory. Women completed a horizontal analog scale assessing the intensity of their pain during intercourse and reported their frequency of intercourse per month. Results. Findings show that women with vestibulodynia and their partners did not differ from population norms with regard to global sexual functioning, dyadic adjustment and psychological adjustment. However, mean frequency of intercourse was lower than the standard for this age group. Also, women had significantly poorer sexual functioning than men. In addition, a regression analysis revealed that partner solicitousness and hostility were significantly associated with higher levels of pain during intercourse. Conclusions. Results suggest that although the psychosexual and relationship characteristics of partners of women with vestibulodynia are within norms, their responses may play a role in the experience of pain. Desrosiers M, Bergeron S, Meana M, Leclerc B, Binik YM, and Khalife S. Psychosexual characteristics of vestibulodynia couples: Partner solicitousness and hostility are associated with pain. J Sex Med 2008;5:418-427.
Thermodilution versus inert gas rebreathing for estimation of effective pulmonary blood flow

Objective: To compare measurements of the effective pulmonary blood flow (&OV0422;ep, i.e., nonshunted fraction of cardiac output, &OV0422;t) by the inert gas rebreathing (RB) method and the thermodilution (TD) technique in critically ill patients. Design: Prospective, comparative study of a noninvasive method and an established invasive technique. Setting: An 11‐bed general intensive care unit in a university hospital. Patients: A total of 14 critically ill patients, all mechanically ventilated and monitored with systemic and pulmonary artery catheters. Measurements and Main Results: &OV0422;ep was determined in duplicate by RB using a mass spectrometer for gas analysis. For each determination, &OV0422;t was measured in triplicate by the cold water bolus TD technique and averaged. Simultaneously mixed venous and arterial blood samples were analyzed to calculate the intrapulmonary shunt fraction and thereby convert estimates of &OV0422;t to &OV0422;ep. Mean difference between paired estimates (RB ‐ TD) was 0.01 L/min, so for differences was 1.19 L/min, and 95% confidence interval for the bias was −0.45 to 0.47 L/min. Coefficients of variation for repeated &OV0422;ep estimates were 8% (RB) and 12% (TD), respectively. Coefficients of variation for RB estimates of functional residual capacity and lung tissue volume were 6% and 17%, respectively. Conclusions: The RB method is a promising method for simultaneous noninvasive estimation of &OV0422;ep and functional residual capacity in mechanically ventilated patients. However, further investigations are needed to evaluate potential problems of the method before it can be recommended for clinical purposes.
Trends in asthma therapy in Hong Kong, 1987-1992.

To audit the clinical practice in drug treatment of bronchial asthma in Hong Kong, two questionnaire surveys were conducted in 1987 and 1992. The questionnaire was adapted from the 1984 European Audit. The response rate was 40% (248 of 615 mailings) in 1987 and 32% (207 of 652 mailings) in 1992. A total of 86% and 87% of responders were general practitioners (GP), respectively, and the others were chest physicians (CP). For treatment of acute severe asthma in adults, parenteral aminophylline was the first drug used by GP in 1987, whereas inhaled beta-agonist was used in 1992. Parenteral steroid was more often used by both GP and CP in 1992. In children, inhaled beta-agonist was always the first choice and parenteral steroid ranked higher in 1992, overtaking parenteral aminophylline. For maintenance therapy of chronic asthma in adults, inhaled beta-agonist ranked first in both surveys. Inhaled steroid has become much more popular with GP, ranking second in 1992, overtaking oral bronchodilators. With CP, inhaled steroid was already ranking second in 1987, and it was used as the first drug, as frequently as inhaled beta-agonist, in 1992. In children, in 1987, inhaled beta-agonist was the first drug of choice, and prophylactic drugs ranked lower than oral bronchodilators with both GP and CP. In 1992, cromoglycate and inhaled steroids were much more often used, so much so that among CP, inhaled steroid ranked first, just ahead of inhaled beta-agonist. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Ictal onset slow potential shifts recorded with hippocampal depth electrodes.

PURPOSE Reports of direct current shifts at the onset of scalp-recorded seizures prompted us to inspect depth-recorded seizures for the presence of similar slow potential shifts at the onset of the seizure to determine whether slow potential (SP) shifts actually occur at the onset of depth-recorded seizures and if these shifts can facilitate localization of the seizure focus. METHODS With the low frequency filter "opened" (LLF=0.1 Hz, HLF=70 Hz, 3 dB/octave), 32 seizures recorded with hippocampal depth and subdural electrodes were visually inspected to identify an SP shift at the onset of the seizure. A seizure was considered as having an SP shift when the slow potential waveform was > 1.5 sec in duration and > 100 microV in amplitude. Seizures were obtained from 5 subjects; 4 underwent epilepsy surgery (3=Engel I, 1=Engel II) and one received VNS. SP shift duration, peak voltage and polarity were measured for each seizure. The ability to identify seizures based on SP shift configuration was also evaluated. RESULTS In 84% of the seizures, ictal onset was associated with a localized SP shift. Shift duration ranged from 1.5 sec to 11.5 sec (96% > 2 sec, 62% > 5 sec). The maximum shift ranged from 139 microV to 2305 microV (mean = 1123 microV, SD = 660 microV). In all the seizures, polarity was positive at the point of maximum shift. By visually examining the SP shift, seizures could be identified as originating from the same focus or from different foci. CONCLUSIONS The onset of depth-recorded seizures appears to be commonly associated with a localized positive SP shift. An SP shift at the onset of depth-recorded seizures is likely to be a useful visual aid for localizing electrographic seizure onset.
Long lasting excitability changes in human peripheral nerve

When pairs of equal but submaximal electrical stimuli are delivered to a peripheral nerve, the second stimulus does not always excite the same number of fibers as the first. The number of fibers responding to the second stimulus depends on the interstimulus interval; the refractory period, a well‐defined period of hypoexcitability, is followed by longer lasting and less well‐characterized periods of hyper‐ and hypoexcitability. These cycles last at least 200 ms after the initial stimulus. We have carefully studied these cycles of excitability in human peripheral nerve in 12 normal subjects. The magnitude of excitability changes were found to be much greater in motor fibers than in mixed nerve; under some conditions, the motor response was reduced by more than 80% at interstimulus intervals of 40 ms, while the mixed nerve response never varied by more than 20%. In addition, the amplitude of the excitability changes varied as a function of the stimulus strength, so that stimuli that were near threshold or evoked near maximal responses were associated with smaller excitability changes than stimuli evoking midrange responses. Given that the excitability fluctuations are of large magnitude and occur at interresponse intervals easily achieved during physiological firing, it is suggested that they may be important modifiers of firing rate under experimental or physiological conditions. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Definitive radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy for T3-4N0 squamous cell carcinoma of the maxillary sinus and nasal cavity.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of definitive radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy for T3-4 squamous cell carcinoma of maxillary sinus and nasal cavity. METHODS Forty-two patients with T3-4N0 squamous cell carcinoma of maxillary sinus (n = 30) and nasal cavity (n = 12) received definitive radiotherapy. Chemotherapy was used in 34 patients and elective neck irradiation was not used. RESULTS The 5-year overall survival/local control rates were 34%/29% for maxillary sinus cancer and 50%/52% for nasal cavity cancer. For maxillary sinus cancers, a performance status of Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group >or=2 (P = 0.012), biologically equivalent dose <68 Gy (P = 0.011) and no use of chemotherapy (P = 0.037) were significant worse predictors for overall survival on log-rank analysis. Biologically equivalent dose <68 Gy was independently associated with poor local control (hazard ratio, 3.32; 95% confidence interval, 1.38-7.97; P = 0.007) and overall survival (hazard ratio, 2.94; 95% confidence interval, 1.23-7.01; P = 0.015). Regional recurrence occurred in only 1 of 30 patients with maxillary sinus cancer and 4 of 12 patients with nasal cavity. Two radiation necrosis in brain, one osteoradionecrosis, and one retinopathy and optic neuropathy occurred. CONCLUSIONS The treatment outcome was poor and local control was a major problem. High radiation dose, effective chemotherapy and elective neck irradiation for advanced nasal cavity cancers may improve disease control.
Radiation Therapy for the Treatment of Vestibular Schwannoma: A Critical Evaluation of the State of the Literature

Objective: Review publications reporting radiation treatment of vestibular schwannomas (VS) and describe how data, patient characteristics, and study endpoints were reported. Data Sources: PubMed search for English language articles on radiation treatment of VS published from January 2002 to July 2007. Study Selection: Studies presenting outcomes were selected, yielding 56 articles (58 studies) in journals of neurosurgery (30), oncology (18), otolaryngology (6), and other (2). Data Extraction/Synthesis: Data included type of study, number of subjects, demographics, follow-up times, type of radiation, tumor size, tumor control definition, control rates, facial nerve function measure and outcome, type of hearing and vestibular testing and outcomes, and complications. Descriptive statistics were performed. Results: Studies (72.9%) were retrospective reviews with stated sample sizes ranging from 5 to 829. Gamma-knife (49.2%), linear accelerator (35.6%), and proton beam (6.8%) were used with various doses. Average follow-up was less than 5 years in 79.6% of studies, and 67.4% included patients at less than or equal to 1 year. Tumor size was reported as diameter (23.7%), volume (49.2%), both (11.9%), other (3.4%), or not reported (11.9%). Definition of tumor control varied: less than or equal to 2 mm growth (22.0%), no visible/measurable change (16.9%), required surgery (10.2%), other (17.0%), and not clearly specified (33.9%). Facial nerve outcome was reported as House-Brackmann (64.4%), normal/abnormal (11.9%), other (1.7%), or was not reported (22%). Conclusion: The lack of uniform reporting criteria for tumor control, facial function and hearing preservation, and variability in follow-up times make it difficult to compare studies of radiation treatment for VS. We recommend consideration of reporting guidelines such as those used in otology for reporting VS resection results.
Cardiac MRI right ventricle / left ventricle (RV/LV) volume ratio improves detection of RV enlargement

To determine the normal range of the ratio of right ventricular (RV) end‐diastolic volume to left ventricular (LV) end‐diastolic volume by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and examine whether combining this volume ratio with RVEDV indexed to body surface area (RVEDVi) increased the detection of RV dilation in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).
Randomized controlled trial of an instructional DVD for clinical skills teaching

Objective: To determine the efficacy of clinical skills teaching using a DVD‐based teaching medium (interventional group) compared with the traditional, four‐step, face‐to‐face approach (control group). The clinical skill selected for the study was that of paediatric intraosseous (IO) needle insertion.
Shared Ownership of Intangible Property Rights: The Case of Patent Coassignments

We show that the legal rules regarding the ability of co-owners of patents to license the patented technology to third parties have important implications not only for licensing, the diffusion of the patented technology, and hence downstream competition but also for the decision to share ownership in the first place. The legal rules that regulate shared ownership also affect efforts provided by the parties at the invention stage and hence impact the quality of the patented technology. We rely on exogenous legal differences between the United States and Europe concerning the ability of co-owners of patents to license the patented technology to third parties to show that the data are consistent with our theoretical predictions.
Paracetamol-induced nephrotoxicity and oxidative stress in rats: the protective role of Nigella sativa

Abstract Context Nigella sativa L. (Ranunculaceae) (NS) is traditionally used to treat many conditions such as inflammation. Objective This study evaluates the effects of NS seeds ethanol extract in paracetamol-induced acute nephrotoxicity in rats. Materials and methods Forty-eight female Wistar Albino rats were divided into eight groups: I = sham; II = sham + 1000 mg/kg NS; III = sham + 140 mg/kg (N-acetyl cysteine) NAC; IV = 2 g/kg paracetamol; V = 2 g/kg paracetamol + 140 mg/kg NAC; VI, VII and VIII = 2 g/kg paracetamol + 250, 500 and 1000 mg/kg NS, respectively. Paracetamol administration (oral) was carried out 1 h after NS and NAC administrations (oral), and all animals were sacrificed 24 h later. Results Paracetamol administration significantly increased serum urea (88.05 U/L) and creatinine (0.80 U/L) when compared with the sham group (49.80 and 0.31 U/L, respectively). However, serum urea level was reduced to 65.60, 56.00 and 54.18 U/L, with 250, 500 and 1000 mg/kg doses of the extract, respectively. Also, serum creatinine level was reduced to 0.64, 0.57 and 0.52 U/L with 250, 500 and 1000 mg/kg doses of the extract, respectively. NS administration increased superoxide dismutase and glutathione, and decreased malondialdehyde levels in the kidneys. Kidney histopathological examinations showed that NS administration antagonized paracetamol-induced kidney pathological damage. Discussion and conclusions The results suggest NS has a significant nephroprotective activity on paracetamol-induced nephrotoxicity. It may be suggested that the antiinflammatory and antioxidant effects of NS ethanolic extract originated from different compounds of its black seeds.
A Context-Aware Automatic Chinese Transliterated Person Names Recognition Approach

Chinese Transliterated Person Name (TP-Name) recognition is a special challenging task in Chinese unknown word recognition and Chinese word segmentation. Most of existing researches mainly focus on recognizing the names of Chinese person while seldom specialize in recognizing transliterated person names. In this paper, we proposed a hybrid method for TP-Name recognition based on both the context of person names exiting in and the reliability model. Besides, partial frequency statistics and proliferation option are also used to correct the misrecognized names and unrecognized names. Experiments based on a true dataset show that our approach is efficient in recognizing the TP-Names from Chinese texts. The precision rate, recall rate and F-measure are 93.81%, 98.14%, 95.92% respectively.
Dental development in children with cleft lip and palate: a comparison between unilateral and bilateral clefts.

AIM The aims of this study were to assess and compare the dental development in patients with unilateral (UCLP) and bilateral (BCLP) cleft lip and palate. STUDY DESIGN Dental developmental delay was compared between 40 UCLP patients (20 boys and 20 girls, average age 9.6 +/- 2.7 years) and 40 BCLP patients matched by sex and age (to the nearest 6 months). For the purpose of comparison, a total of 80 panoramic radiographs of unaffected group matching in age and sex were selected randomly. METHODS Using panoramic radiographs, the seven left mandibular permanent teeth, second molar to central incisor, were rated on eight stage scales using the methods described by Demirjian et al. [1973]. The stage of each tooth was converted to the corresponding numeric value, and then all values were added to obtain a dental maturity score, which corresponded to a dental age. STATISTICS The differences in developmental delay between the two cleft groups were determined using independent t-test. RESULTS There was statistically significant difference (P<0.0001) between chronologic and dental age in cleft patients. The mean dental development delay in UCLP was 0.34 years and for BCLP was 0.61 years. BCLP patients were found to have a greater delay than UCLP patients (P<0.05). Girls showed an advanced dental development in both types of clefts. Comparison between the two cleft groups showed only significant difference in the amount of delay in female subjects. CONCLUSION Dental development in UCLP and BCLP patients was significantly delayed compared to non cleft reference. Dental development in boys was significantly behind that of girls. A significant difference in the amount of delay between both cleft types was found only in female subjects.
Additive manufacturing in SMEs: empirical evidences from Italy

Research on innovative technological methods in SMEs’ production processes is progressively receiving attention. However, little is known about the emerging phenomenon of additive manufacturing (AM), which may represent a significant strategic lever for fostering a company’s competitiveness and performance, especially for SMEs. Our aim is to investigate the effects of AM on SMEs’ production process, in order to better understand the relative outcomes of such an innovative technique. We used latent content analysis for empirically analyzing SMEs present in one of the most important Italian gold jewelry districts. Our findings suggest that the AM introduction in a company’s production process effectively results in many positive outcomes, such as process innovation, customer satisfaction, costs, revenues, profits, and competitive advantage. Specifically, there is a positive linkage between AM and a company’s performance. Hence, such an innovative technique may be interpreted as a viable growth strategy for .