Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Size and dynamics of order-of-entry effects in pharmaceutical markets

In anticipation of long-run competitive advantages, pharmaceutical companies often try to enter new markets earlier than their competitors. It is questionable, however, whether this effort is really justified, because knowledge about the expected size of these order-of-entry advantages is scarce. Apart from confirming the existence of long-run advantages for the first mover for some selected brands, the literature gives hardly any guidelines. The objective of this article is to provide the information on the existence, the size, and the dynamics of order-of-entry effects, which is necessary for deciding on the optimal moment for a launch. The author proposes a new framework—a fractional panel probit model—which is fitted to a big and representative sample. With this procedure, order-of-entry effects can be measured in a multivariate model and as absolute market share differences, which is more informative for pharmaceutical companies than former measures.
Psychological distress and its associated socio-demographic factors among amputees in an orthopaedic hospital in south-eastern Nigeria

Early detection and treatment of psychological morbidity have been associated with reduction in long-term disability and increase in total well-being of amputees. However, much attention have been focused on the management of the physical disability with little interest on differences in distress on account of socio-demographic factors such as gender. This cross-sectional study examined psychological distress in 86 orthopaedic patients with limb amputation participated in the study. They were assessed with the Symptom Distress Checklist-90 (SCL-90) and socio-demographic questionnaire. Results showed that about sixty-four percent (64.4%) of the participants manifested distress in at least one domain of the Symptom Distress Checklist. None of the socio-demographic variables (e.g., gender) differentiated the participants in their self-reported psychological distress. Considering the high prevalence of psychological distress among amputees, mental health professionals should be involved in the management of these patients prior to and after amputation in order to enhance and promote prevention, early detection and treatment of psychological morbidity among amputees.Keywords: Amputation, Gender, Mental Health, Psychological distress, Psychotherapy
PENGARUH PROFITABILITAS, OPINI AUDITOR, DAN STRUKTUR KEPEMILIKAN TERHADAP KETEPATAN WAKTU PENYAMPAIAN LAPORAN KEUANGAN

State revenue from the taxation sector remains dominating over This research is conducted to test the effect of variables Profitability, Audit Opinion, and Ownership Structure of the Timeliness of Financial Statement in the all companies Infrastructure, Utilities, and Transportation sectors listed in Indonesia Stock Exchange during 2013-2016. The population in this study amounted to 60 companies. Samples were obtained in this study amounted to 38 samples are selected by purposive sampling method. The analysis technique used here is logistic regression and hypothesis test using t-satistic with level of significance 5%. The results indicate that the variable Profitability not significant effect of the Timeliness of Financial Statement and variable Ownership Structure not significant effect of the Timeliness of Financial Statement. However, variable Audit Opinion significant effect of the Timeliness of Financial Statement
L ocations and morphologies of sympathetically correlated neurons in the T spinal segment of the rat 10 *

We precisely localized and morphologically characterized sympathetically correlated neurons in the acutely transected spinal cord of the rat. We have shown that these neurons are likely members of the spinal networks that generate sympathetic activity after spinal cord transection. In humans with injured spinal cords, these networks are responsible for hypertensive crises that occur in response to ordinarily innocuous stimuli. We recorded from neurons in the dorsal horn of the T spinal segment of anesthetized rats after acute spinal cord 10 transection at C . Neurons with activities closely correlated to renal sympathetic nerve activity (RSNA) were considered to be putative 2 components of spinal sympathetic systems. These neurons had receptive fields on the left flank and abdomen. After characterizing their ongoing activities, receptive fields, and degrees of correlation with RSNA, we juxtacellularly labeled neurons with biotinamide and subsequently reconstructed their somas and dendrites histologically. Confirming our earlier studies, sympathetically correlated neurons were found in dorsal horn laminae III, IV, and V. For the first time, we also identified sympathetically correlated neurons in laminae I and II. The dendrites of all sympathetically correlated neurons projected to multiple lamina. By virtue of the positions of their somas and the broad projections of their dendrites, we concluded that sympathetically correlated neurons may receive direct input both from supraspinal systems and from nociceptive and non-nociceptive primary afferents.  2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Theme: Endocrine and autonomic regulation Topic: Cardiovascular regulation
Elevation of Plasma High-Density Lipoprotein Concentration Reduces Interleukin-1–Induced Expression of E-Selectin in an In Vivo Model of Acute Inflammation

Background—Although there is strong evidence that plasma HDL levels correlate inversely with the incidence of coronary artery disease, the precise mechanism(s) for the protective effect of HDLs remains unclear. We recently showed that HDLs inhibit endothelial cell expression of cytokine-induced leukocyte adhesion molecules in vitro. Our study therefore sought to test the hypothesis that elevating the level of circulating HDLs would inhibit endothelial cell activation in vivo. Methods and Results—We used a porcine model of inflammation previously established in our laboratory, in which the level of vascular endothelial cell expression of E-selectin in interleukin (IL)-1&agr;–induced skin lesions was measured by the uptake of a radiolabeled anti–E-selectin antibody (1.2B6). Porcine plasma HDL levels were elevated by use of a bolus injection of reconstituted discoidal HDL (recHDL). These particles resemble nascent HDL particles in shape and contain apolipoprotein A-I as the sole protein and soybean phosphatidylcholine as the sole phospholipid. We found that recHDLs inhibited the expression of IL-1&agr;–induced E-selectin by porcine aortic endothelial cells in vitro, confirming that the inhibitory effect is conserved with synthetic HDLs and demonstrating that the phenomenon is not restricted to human endothelial cells. In vivo, elevating the circulating level of HDLs ≈2-fold led to significant inhibition of basal and IL-1&agr;–induced E-selectin expression by porcine microvascular endothelial cells. Conclusions—These observations demonstrate the potential anti-inflammatory action of HDLs and provide support for the further investigation of the mechanisms underlying the inhibitory effects of HDLs on endothelial cell activation.
MULTIFRACTIONAL PROCESSES WITH RANDOM EXPONENT

Multifractional Processes with Random Exponent (MPRE) are obtained by replacing the Hurst parameter of Fractional Brownian Motion (FBM) with a stochastic process. This process need not be independent of the white noise generating the FBM. MPREs can be conveniently represented as random wavelet series. We will use this type of representation to study their Holder regularity and their self-similarity.
Bootstrapping incremental dialogue systems from minimal data: the generalisation power of dialogue grammars

We investigate an end-to-end method for automatically inducing task-based dialogue systems from small amounts of unannotated dialogue data. It combines an incremental semantic grammar - Dynamic Syntax and Type Theory with Records (DS-TTR) - with Reinforcement Learning (RL), where language generation and dialogue management are a joint decision problem. The systems thus produced are incremental: dialogues are processed word-by-word, shown previously to be essential in supporting natural, spontaneous dialogue. We hypothesised that the rich linguistic knowledge within the grammar should enable a combinatorially large number of dialogue variations to be processed, even when trained on very few dialogues. Our experiments show that our model can process 74% of the Facebook AI bAbI dataset even when trained on only 0.13% of the data (5 dialogues). It can in addition process 65% of bAbI+, a corpus we created by systematically adding incremental dialogue phenomena such as restarts and self-corrections to bAbI. We compare our model with a state-of-the-art retrieval model, MEMN2N. We find that, in terms of semantic accuracy, the MEMN2N model shows very poor robustness to the bAbI+ transformations even when trained on the full bAbI dataset.
Working holiday makers in Australian horticulture: labour market effect, exploitation and avenues for reform

ABSTRACT Using a mixed-method analysis, this paper examines the effect of working holiday makers (WHMs) on the labour market for low-skilled work in the horticulture industry. Since the inception of the WHM visa in 1975, the horticulture industry has come to rely increasingly on WHMs as the core source of labour for picking and packing fruit and vegetables. This reliance has altered employers’ expectations of labour flexibility, cost and productivity and has limited the role of local workers in the industry in many locations. At the same time, there is evidence of widespread exploitation of WHMs in the industry. There is a difficult policy challenge of how to address the problems of exploitation while maintaining a reliable labour supply for the industry. The article draws on the growing literature considering the role of temporary labour migration on national labour markets to frame the analysis of WHMs in Australian horticulture, and concludes with suggestions for how the horticulture labour market can be reformed through appropriate, targeted regulation of temporary migrants in the industry.
Corporate Resilience to Banking Crises: The Roles of Trust and Trade Credit

Are firms more resilient to systemic banking crises in economies with higher levels of social trust? Using firm-level data in 34 countries from 1990 through 2011, we find that liquidity-dependent firms in high-trust countries obtain more trade credit and suffer smaller drops in profits and employment during banking crises than similar firms in low-trust economies. The results are consistent with the view that when banking crises block the normal bank-lending channel, greater social trust facilitates access to informal finance, cushioning the effects of these crises on corporate profits and employment.
The Benefits of Breast Feeding across the Early Years of Childhood

There has been much scrutiny recently of the choice to breast-feed rather than formula-feed an infant, yet key identification issues remain to be resolved. This study uses the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey—Birth Cohort to explore the causal effect of breast feeding on child development. Using simultaneous equations models and propensity score measures and adjusting for confounding factors, we examine health, physical, and cognitive outcomes and relate these to a set of breast feeding and formula feeding intensities measures. Our results indicate that breast feeding is protective against obesity and improves cognitive outcomes at 24 months and 54 months. Furthermore, not being formula-fed at birth is associated with higher motor scores.
Do low involved brands have better consumer perception due to product placement in emerging markets?

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of the product placement in the film on purchase intention, attitude and change in perception. For this study, we selected recently released film and interviewed the film goers after he came out of the theatre through intercept technique. The products have improved brand recall, perception, and brand recommendation, ‘feeling’ towards brands, association and purchase intentions which are our dependent variables in our study. Brand image, country image, value for money and culture affects these dependent variables as per our present study. Low involved products get more mileage from product placement. The effect of product placement in low and high involved brand is explained for the first time through application alternative hierarchy’s theory of Ray et al., Theory of Hovland et al. and Gestalt theory of familiarity. Our paper bridges the gap between theory and practice by suggesting improvement in product placement in non –traditional media like film.
Comparison of External Exposure of Central and Eastern-European States as a Factor Threatening Financial Security of Their Economies

Central and Eastern-European countries are strongly linked to the international economic and financial systems, which results in their dependence on foreign capital and on the upturn in the global markets. This situation also makes them vulnerable to external shocks. Resilience of the economies of CEE countries was additionally diminished by their relatively quick and uncompromising opening up to the process of globalization and European integration. All the economies subject to scrutiny have quite a substantial external debt level (reaching 55–139% of GDP), their net international investment position is quite strongly in the negative (constituting 25–71% of GDP). They are also characterized by high level of foreign liabilities (85–350% of GDP), a significant degree of trade openness (export and import of goods and services amounting to 41–94% of GDP), considerable rate of foreign liquid portfolio investments (even as much as 32% of GDP). Another common feature is the strong financial support received from the EU budget, with CEE countries being its net beneficiaries (with the accumulated value of funds received from the EU budget in 2004–2015 at the level of 21–42% of GDP). It should be borne in mind that Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia and Slovakia are members of the Eurozone, i.e. operate an international currency, which improves their creditworthiness and augments the trust of the global markets. What seems not without significance for investors is the fact that the IMF classified these five CEE countries – as well as the Czech Republic – as advanced economies. In light of the above, it should be stated that the Polish economy is characterized by a relatively strong external exposure relative to the creditworthiness the country boasts. This exposure increases Poland’s vulnerability to shocks and makes it less immune thereto. These circumstances partially explain the higher estimation of the risk premium for investments in Poland, which reduces the state’s opportunities and prospects of development in comparison with other CEE economies. It should be stressed that when assessing the external exposure one must take into account not only its particular characteristics, but also the economic and political stability of a given country – or, more specifically and importantly, their assessment by financial markets.
Clinical and biological effects of gefitinib in EGFR FISH positive/phospho-akt positive or never smoker non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC): Preliminary results of the ONCOBELL trial.

7023 Background: Effectiveness of gefitinib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), in never smokers and/or EGFR FISH positive NSCLC patients has been evaluated only in retrospective studies and few data exist on the biological effects of gefitinib therapy in tumor samples. METHODS The ONCOBELL trial is a multicenter prospective phase II study designed to include 39 patients EGFR FISH positive/phospho-Akt (p-AKT) positive and/or never smokers with advanced or metastatic NSCLC. Gefitinib is given at the daily dose of 250 mg. When feasible, primary tumor biopsy was repeated immediately before therapy, during therapy and at progression. Specimens were evaluated for EGFR and HER2 gene copy number by FISH, EGFR gene mutation by DNA sequencing, and EGFR and p-AKT protein expression by immunohistochemistry. RESULTS Data from the first 28 enrolled patients are available: median age was 60 years (range, 43-80); male/female: 7/21; stage IIIB/IV: 2/26; ECOG PS 0/1/2: 18/6/4; 25 patients had a diagnosis of adenocarcinoma and/or bronchioloalveolar carcinoma; 13 patients had brain metastases, and in 10 cases gefitinib was offered as first-line therapy. Twenty-four patients were never smokers and 19 were EGFR FISH positive. Overall response rate was 54%, including 1 complete and 14 partial responses. Median time to progression was 6.45 months, and median survival was not reached. Response to therapy was not influenced by previous therapies or presence of brain metastases. Toxicity was mild, and consisted in grade 1-2 skin rash (68%) and diarrhea (57%). One patient developed grade 3 diarrhea and another patient was hospitalized for acute interstitial lung disease. In patients exposed to previous chemotherapy, no difference in EGFR or HER2 FISH results were observed in specimens collected at the time of original diagnosis compared to specimens collected immediately before gefitinib therapy. In 14 cases primary tumor biopsy was repeated during gefitinib therapy. CONCLUSIONS These preliminary data indicate that gefitinib is highly effective in patients with trial characteristics. Clinical and biological data for the entire cohort will be available in June 2006. No significant financial relationships to disclose.
Nonvolumetric Echocardiographic Indices of Right Ventricular Systolic Function: Validation with Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance and Relationship with Functional Capacity

Purpose: Right ventricular (RV) systolic function as measured by right ventricular ejection fraction (RVEF) has long been recognized as an important predictor of outcome in heart failure patients. The echocardiographic measurement of RV volumes and RVEF is challenging, however, owing to the unique geometry of the right ventricle. Several nonvolumetric echocardiographic indices of RV function have demonstrated prognostic value in heart failure. Comparison studies of these techniques with each other using RVEF as a benchmark are limited, however. Furthermore, the contribution of these various elements of RV function to patient functional status is uncertain. We therefore aimed to: (1) Determine which nonvolumetric echocardiographic index correlates best with RVEF as determined by cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging (the accepted gold standard measure of RV systolic function) and (2) Ascertain which echocardiographic index best predicts functional capacity. Methods: Eighty‐three subjects (66 with systolic heart failure and 17 healthy controls) underwent CMR, 2D echocardiography, and cardiopulmonary exercise testing for comparison of echocardiographic indices of RV function with CMR RVEF, 6‐minute walk distance and VO2 PEAK. Results: Speckle tracking strain RV strain exhibited the closest association with CMR RV ejection fraction. Indices of RV function demonstrated weak correlation with 6‐minute walk distance, but basal RV strain rate by tissue velocity imaging had good correlation with VO2 PEAK. Conclusion: Strain by speckle tracking echocardiography and strain rate by tissue velocity imaging may offer complementary information in the evaluation of RV contractility and its functional effects. (Echocardiography 2012;29:455‐463)
Intussusceptive angiogenesis: Its emergence, its characteristics, and its significance

This review shall familiarize the reader with the various aspects of intussusceptive angiogenesis (IA). The basic event in IA is the formation of transvascular tissue pillars. Depending on location, timing, and frequency of pillar emergence, the IA process has different outcomes. In capillaries, a primary IA function is to expand the capillary bed in size and complexity (intussusceptive microvascular growth). It represents an alternative to capillary sprouting. Highly ordered pillar formation in a developing capillary network leads to the formation of vascular trees (intussusceptive arborization). In small arteries and veins, pillar formation at the vessels' branching angles leads either to remodeling of the branching geometry or even to vascular pruning (intussusceptive branching remodeling). It appears essential that future angiogenic research considers always both phenomena, sprouting and intussusception. Vascularization of tissues, organs, and tumors rely heavily on both mechanisms; neglecting one or the other would obscure our understanding of the angiogenesis process. Developmental Dynamics 231:474–488, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A direct boundary integral equation method for the numerical construction of harmonic functions in three-dimensional layered domains containing a cavity

We consider boundary value problems for the Laplace equation in three-dimensional multilayer domains composed of an infinite strip layer of finite height and a half-space containing a bounded cavity. The unknown (harmonic) function satisfies the Neumann boundary condition on the exterior boundary of the strip layer (i.e. at the bottom of the first layer), the Dirichlet, Neumann or Robin boundary condition on the boundary surface of the cavity and the corresponding transmission (matching) conditions on the interface layer boundary. We reduce this boundary value problem to a boundary integral equation over the boundary surface of the cavity by constructing Green's matrix for the corresponding transmission problem in the domain consisting of the infinite layer and the half-space (not with the cavity). This direct integral equation approach leads, for any of the above boundary conditions, to boundary integral equations with a weak singularity on the cavity. The numerical solution of this equation is realized by Wienert's [Die Numerische approximation von Randintegraloperatoren für die Helmholtzgleichung im R 3, Ph.D. thesis, University of Göttingen, Germany, 1990] method. The reduction of the problem, originally set in an unbounded three-dimensional region, to a boundary integral equation over the boundary of a bounded domain, is computationally advantageous. Numerical results are included for various boundary conditions on the boundary of the cavity, and compared against a recent indirect approach [R. Chapko, B.T. Johansson, and O. Protsyuk, On an indirect integral equation approach for stationary heat transfer in semi-infinite layered domains in R 3 with cavities, J. Numer. Appl. Math. (Kyiv) 105 (2011), pp. 4–18], and the results obtained show the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method. In particular, exponential convergence is obtained for smooth cavities.
Oblique Decision Tree Ensemble via Multisurface Proximal Support Vector Machine

A new approach to generate oblique decision tree ensemble is proposed wherein each decision hyperplane in the internal node of tree classifier is not always orthogonal to a feature axis. All training samples in each internal node are grouped into two hyper-classes according to their geometric properties based on a randomly selected feature subset. Then multisurface proximal support vector machine is employed to obtain two clustering hyperplanes where each hyperplane is generated such that it is closest to one group of the data and as far as possible from the other group. Then, one of the bisectors of these two hyperplanes is regarded as the test hyperplane for this internal node. Several regularization methods have been applied to handle the small sample size problem as the tree grows. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by 44 real-world benchmark classification data sets from various research fields. These classification results show the advantage of the proposed approach in both computation time and classification accuracy.