Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Self-reported sleep duration and time in bed as predictors of physical function decline: results from the InCHIANTI study.

STUDY OBJECTIVES To characterize elderly persons into sleep/rest groups based on their self-reported habitual total sleeping time (TST) and habitual time in bed (TIB) and to examine the prospective association between sleep/rest behavior on physical function decline. DESIGN Population-based InCHIANTI study with 6 years follow-up (Tuscany, Italy). SETTING Community. PARTICIPANTS Men and women aged ≥ 65 years (n = 751). MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS At baseline, participants were categorized into 5 sleep/rest behavior groups according to their self-reported TST and TIB, computed from bedtime and wake-up time. Physical function was assessed at baseline and at 3- and 6-year follow-ups as walking speed, the Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB), and self-reported mobility disability (ability to walk 400 m or climb one flight of stairs). Both long (≥ 9 h) TST and long TIB predicted accelerated decline in objectively measured physical performance and greater incidence in subjectively assessed mobility disability, but short (≤ 6 h) TST did not. After combining TST and TIB, long sleepers (TST and TIB ≥ 9 h) experienced the greatest decline in physical performance and had the highest risk for incident mobility disability in comparison to mid-range sleepers with 7-8 h TST and TIB. Subjective short sleepers reporting short (≤ 6 h) TST but long (≥ 9 h) TIB showed a greater decline in SPPB score and had a higher risk of incident mobility disability than true short sleepers with short (≤ 6 h) TST and TIB ≤ 8 hours. CONCLUSIONS Extended time in bed as well as long total sleeping time is associated with greater physical function decline than mid-range or short sleep. TIB offers important additive information to the self-reported sleep duration when evaluating the consequences of sleep duration on health and functional status.
Stability Properties of Digital Predictive Current-Mode Controllers for Three-level Flying Capacitor Converters

This paper investigates the stability properties of digital predictive current-mode control (DPCMC) of three-level flying capacitor Buck converters (3LFC) operated in single-sampling and multi-sampling mode. While DPCMC has been extensively studied for basic dc-dc topologies, a dedicated analysis is required when it comes to multi-level converters due to the interaction between the predictive control law and the flying-capacitors (FC) voltage dynamics. This work clarifies the operating point-dependent and load-dependent stability properties of average and valley DPCMC and combines them with recently published results for peak DPCMC in order to provide a comprehensive picture for these types of digital controllers. The developed analysis is validated through simulations and experimentally on a low-voltage 500kHz, 12V-to-1.5V, 500mA 3LFC-Buck prototype.
A political economy of pension reform in Korea.

This thesis is the first paper to take a political economy approach in exploring the fundamental factors of the 2007 Korean pension reform in a critical manner. The financial elements of the funded National Pension Scheme (NPS) inevitably created various intcrdependencies with the PAYG public pensions. As a result, the Korean pension reform process was executed in a different manner from that in Western pension welfare state-economic regimes.
Relationship of early-life trauma, war-related trauma, personality traits, and PTSD symptom severity: a retrospective study on female civilian victims of war

Background Consequences of war-related traumatisation have mostly been investigated in military and predominant male populations, while research on female civilian victims of war has been neglected. Furthermore, research of post-war posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in women has rarely included early-life trauma in their prediction models, so the contribution of trauma in childhood and early youth is still unexplored. Objective To examine the relationship of early-life trauma, war-related trauma, personality traits, and symptoms of posttraumatic stress among female civilian victims of the recent war in Croatia. Method The cross-sectional study included 394 participants, 293 war-traumatised adult women civilians, and 101 women without war-related trauma. Participants were recruited using the snowball sampling method. The applied instruments included the Clinician-Administrated PTSD Scale (CAPS), the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (NEO-PI-R), the War Stressors Assessment Questionnaire (WSAQ), and the Early Trauma Inventory Self Report-Short Form (ETISR-SF). A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed to assess the prediction model of PTSD symptom severity measured by CAPS score for current PTSD. Results The prevalence of current PTSD (CAPS cut-off score=65) in this cohort was 20.7%. The regression model that included age, early-life trauma, war-related trauma, neuroticism, and extraversion as statistically significant predictors explained 45.8% of variance in PTSD symptoms. Conclusions Older age, exposure to early-life trauma, exposure to war-related traumatic events, high neuroticism, and low extraversion are independent factors associated with higher level of PTSD symptoms among women civilian victims of war.
Using Quality Indicators in Health Economic Evaluation to Establish the Value for Money of Quality Improvements: Obstacles and Opportunities

The existence of budgetary constraints within healthcare systems is increasingly recognized and prompts additional considerations of cost-effectiveness of interventions before their introduction. A challenge that has arisen within the last decade is the increasing use of quality indicators (QIs) as outcome for interventions that improve quality and safety in healthcare. QIs aim at quantifying the effect of quality improvements and are often not measures that allow for establishment of costeffectiveness, based on generally acknowledged threshold values, as they do not reflect health gains per se. Opportunities to identify cost-effective quality improvements may be missed if their value for money cannot be established by use of conventional health economic methods. The aim here was to apply Bayesian decision theory and value of information (VOI) analysis to 1) investigate the requirements for QIs to be applicable for economic evaluation and 2) investigate under which circumstances QIs may be used to aid decision-making. Thus, Bayesian decision theory and VOI analysis were used to establish a framework to identify requirements for acceptable QIs and for evaluation of uncertainty when applying QIs for estimation of cost-effectiveness of interventions. Use of QIs introduces an intermediate link in the relationship between interventions and expected net benefit, which increases the total uncertainty pertaining to results. This uncertainty carries a potential cost, interpreted as expected value of perfect parameter information, which should be compared to the expected cost and benefits of resolving that uncertainty. Requirements for an acceptable QI include a correlation between the intervention and the QI and an established correlation between the QI and patient-relevant outcomes. If these correlations are misspecified, the validity of cost-effectiveness results may be compromised. Bayesian decision theory and VOI analysis may comprise a viable framework for evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of quality improvement, allowing for more informed decision-making. AS Vestergaard, LH Ehlers Submitted[1]
Risk Assessment and Earning Management in Banking of Indonesia: Corporate Governance Mechanisms

Objective – The aim of this study to investigate the impact of risk assessment using the risk inherent and quality implementation of quality risk management in the operational activities of banking operations to earnings management practices through loss loan provisions and examine whether the mechanism of corporate government bank covering structure of corporate governance and quality of corporate governance can reduce the impact increase in earnings management in Banking sector of Indonesian. We used data pooled from 2012 through 2014. Methodology/Technique – By exploring the purposive sampling method, the 36 banking listed on the Stock Exchange Indonesian were selected as a sample of this study. A panel data multivariate regression methodology is used. Findings – The result of this study that (1) risk assessment strengthens the decrease in the earning management implementation after the adoption of IFRS in IAS 39; (2) corporate governance mechanisms can weaken the decrease in the earnings management practices through loan loss provisions. Novelty – The final conclusion are IFRS in IAS No. 39 and Basel II Accord generally evidence to improve in bank’s financial report quality. This study could not find an empirical evidence on the impact of corporate government mechanisms covering structure of corporate governance and quality of corporate governance can reduce the increase in earnings management in Banking sector of Indonesian. Type of Paper: Empirical.
Exploring organizational service orientation: A preliminary analysis in the retail industry

This study explored organizational service orientation and focused on the dimensions, limits and measurability of the construct. A concept-centric literature review was conducted to clarify the borders of the construct, to investigate the dimensions of the construct and to gather tools for comprehensive measurement of the construct. Based on the findings, this study constructed an analytical framework for organizational service orientation and formed a scale that measures it accordingly. The framework and the scale represent a comprehensive view on the subject avoiding the context restrictions evident in previous research. The theoretical findings implicate that the following dimensions are essential for organizational service orientation: internal characteristics (e.g., service climate and organizational culture), strategy (e.g., service-orientated business strategy and service-oriented strategic choices) and the nature of the services offered (e.g., services in support of the client’s actions or in support of the product). In the empirical section, the framework and the scale were utilized to gather data from the retail sector to examine organizational service orientation. First, the scales were pre-tested during February-March 2013 with a test survey among the members of the Union of special trade (Erikoiskaupanliitto) yielding 39 responses. Second, the actual quantitative data used in this study was collected during October-November 2013 with a web-based questionnaire administered to 1263 operative managers of speciality retail stores in Finland. The survey yielded 152 acceptable responses (response rate 12.02%). An exploratory factor analysis was conducted on the collected data in order to identify the underlying dimensions of organizational service orientation. The empirical findings of the analysis indicate five acceptable factors in the collected data: service-minded leadership, service capabilities, commitment to serving customers, service recovery and organizational service culture. The results of the analysis differ from the dimensions gathered from previous research, thus providing a ground for further investigations concerning the construct of organizational service orientation.
The carbon footprint of an Australian satellite haemodialysis unit.

OBJECTIVES This study aimed to better understand the carbon emission impact of haemodialysis (HD) throughout Australia by determining its carbon footprint, the relative contributions of various sectors to this footprint, and how contributions from electricity and water consumption are affected by local factors. METHODS Activity data associated with HD provision at a 6-chair suburban satellite HD unit in Victoria in 2011 was collected and converted to a common measurement unit of tonnes of CO2 equivalents (t CO2-eq) via established emissions factors. For electricity and water consumption, emissions factors for other Australian locations were applied to assess the impact of local factors on these footprint contributors. RESULTS In Victoria, the annual per-patient carbon footprint of satellite HD was calculated to be 10.2t CO2-eq. The largest contributors were pharmaceuticals (35.7%) and medical equipment (23.4%). Throughout Australia, the emissions percentage attributable to electricity consumption ranged from 5.2% to 18.6%, while the emissions percentage attributable to water use ranged from 4.0% to 11.6%. CONCLUSIONS State-by-state contributions of energy and water use to the carbon footprint of satellite HD appear to vary significantly. Performing emissions planning and target setting at the state level may be more appropriate in the Australian context. What is known about the topic? Healthcare provision carries a significant environmental footprint. In particular, conventional HD uses substantial amounts of electricity and water. In the UK, provision of HD and peritoneal dialysis was found to have an annual per-patient carbon footprint of 7.1t CO2-eq. What does this paper add? This is the first carbon-footprinting study of HD in Australia. In Victoria, the annual per-patient carbon footprint of satellite conventional HD is 10.2t CO2-eq. Notably, the contributions of electricity and water consumption to the carbon footprint varies significantly throughout Australia when local factors are taken into account. What are the implications for practitioners? We recommend that healthcare providers consider local factors when planning emissions reduction strategies, and target setting should be performed at the state, as opposed to national, level. There is a need for more comprehensive and current emissions data to enable healthcare providers to do so.
Patient satisfaction is rated higher by radiation oncology outpatients receiving nutrition intervention compared with usual care.

BACKGROUND Satisfaction with services has been considered vital for the provision of quality health care, however, there are few published papers utilizing patient satisfaction with nutrition services as a measurable outcome. METHOD A randomized, controlled trial investigating the impact of nutrition intervention (NI) vs. usual care (UC) in 54 ambulatory oncology patients receiving radiotherapy to the gastrointestinal or head and neck area demonstrated beneficial impacts in terms of body weight, nutritional status, quality of life and bowel health. This study reports the changes in patient satisfaction that were associated with these improved outcomes for patients receiving NI compared with UC. The patient satisfaction with clinical nutrition services questionnaire was used to measure overall satisfaction and satisfaction with four components of nutrition services 12 weeks after patients commenced radiotherapy. RESULTS Patients receiving NI rated satisfaction higher for staff interpersonal skills (P < 0.001), perceived health benefits (P = 0.008), staff presentation skills (P = 0.044) and for overall patient satisfaction with nutrition services (P = 0.002). There were no significant differences between those patients receiving NI or UC for the nutrition supplements factor (P = 0.191). CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that patients receiving NI perceive nutrition as being beneficial and of higher importance to their health than those receiving UC. This may lead to increased compliance with the nutrition prescription and help explain the better outcomes observed in the NI group compared with the UC group. Patient satisfaction with nutrition services should be conducted regularly to act as a quality-control measure and target areas for improvement.
THE EFFECT OF ELECTRONIC WORD OF MOUTH, MESSAGE SOURCE CREDIBILITY, INFORMATION QUALITY ON BRAND IMAGE AND PURCHASE INTENTION

This study is aimed to investigate the extent to which electronic word of mouth (eWOM) affects brand image and purchase intention. Further, other variables employed in this study are message source credibility and information quality. These variables are employed to explore the influence of eWOM on brand image and purchase intention by simultaneously involving message source credibility and information quality as independent variables. Message source credibility and information quality become important, because they can affect persuasion of customers. The research type is explanatory research with quantitative approach. The sampling technique used in this study was purposive sampling. The model was tested empirically using sample of 138 members of MIUI Indonesia Fansite. Analysis data technique in this study uses Generalized Structured Component Analysis (GSCA) to examine the effect of electronic word of mouth, message source credibility, information quality on brand image and purchase intention. Results showed that electronic word of mouth, message source credibility, information quality have positive and significant effect on brand image and purchase intention. Key words: electronic word of mouth; message source credibility; information; brand image; purchase intention
Diabetes mellitus and risk of developing Alzheimer disease: results from the Framingham Study.

BACKGROUND Diabetes mellitus (DM) could increase the risk of Alzheimer disease (AD) through several biologically plausible pathways, but the relationship between DM and the development of AD remains uncertain. OBJECTIVE To compare the risk of developing AD in subjects with and without DM. DESIGN Prospective community-based cohort study. PARTICIPANTS Framingham Study Original cohort participants who were dementia free and attended the 16th biennial examination (n = 2210 persons, 1325 women; mean age, 70 years). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Relative risk of incident AD (criteria from the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Diseases and Stroke/Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association) associated with baseline DM (casual plasma glucose >or=200 mg/dL [>or=11.1 mmol/L] or use of insulin or a hypoglycemic drug) in overall group and within subgroups defined by apolipoprotein E genotype and plasma homocysteine levels; models were adjusted for age, sex, and cardiovascular risk factors. RESULTS At baseline, 202 participants (9.1%) had DM. During the follow-up period (mean, 12.7 years; range, 1-20 years), 17 of 202 persons with DM (8.4%) and 220 of 2008 persons without DM (11.0%) developed AD, yielding a relative risk of 1.15 (95% confidence interval, 0.65-2.05). Among subjects without an apolipoprotein E epsilon4 allele or elevated plasma homocysteine levels, 44 of 684 persons (6.4%) developed AD; relative risk for AD comparing diabetic patients with nondiabetic patients was 2.98 (95% confidence interval, 1.06-8.39; P = .03). The effect was strongest in persons aged 75 years or older with a relative risk of 4.77 (95% confidence interval, 1.28-17.72; P = .02). CONCLUSION Diabetes mellitus did not increase the risk of incident AD in the Framingham cohort overall; however, DM may be a risk factor for AD in the absence of other known major AD risk factors.
Effects of a Sexy Appearance on Perceived Competence of Women

The present study replicates P. Glick, S. Larsen, C. Johnson, and H. Branstiter's (2005) previous research showing that a sexy appearance may be detrimental to women in high-status jobs. The authors used a larger sample and different stimulus materials and evaluation measures. As in the original experiment, participants rated sexually and professionally dressed women in both low- and high-status positions on perceived ability. The results were consistent with the original study and showed that high-status, sexually dressed women receive lower ratings in competence.
Kiln-Net: A Gated Neural Network for Detection of Brick Kilns in South Asia

The availability of high-resolution satellite imagery has enabled several new applications such as identification of brick kilns for the elimination of modern-day slavery. This requires automated analysis of approximately 1 551 997 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{km}^2$</tex-math></inline-formula> area within the “Brick-Kiln-Belt” of South Asia. Although modern machine learning techniques have achieved high accuracy for a wide variety of applications, problems involving large-scale analysis using high-resolution satellite imagery requires both accuracy as well as computational efficiency. We propose a coarse-to-fine strategy consisting of an inexpensive classifier and a detector, which work in tandem to achieve high accuracy at low computational cost. More specifically, we propose a two-stage gated neural network architecture called <italic>Kiln-Net</italic>. At the first stage, imagery is classified using the ResNet-152 model which filters out over <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{99}\%$</tex-math></inline-formula> of irrelevant data. At the second stage, a YOLOv3-based object detector is applied to find the precise location of each brick kiln in the candidate regions. The dataset, named <italic>Asia14</italic>, consisting of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$14\,000$</tex-math></inline-formula> Digital Globe RGB images and 14 categories is also developed to train the proposed kiln-net architecture. Our proposed network architecture is evaluated on approximately <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{3{,}300}$</tex-math></inline-formula> km<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^2$</tex-math></inline-formula> region (<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$337\,723$</tex-math></inline-formula> image patches) from 14 different cities in five different countries of South Asia. It outperforms state-of-the-art methods employed for the recognition of brick kilns and achieved an accuracy of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{99.96}\%$</tex-math></inline-formula> and average F1 score of 0.91. To the best of our knowledge, it is also <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$20\,$</tex-math></inline-formula>x faster than existing methods.
Structure of a Plasmodium falciparum PfEMP1 rosetting domain reveals a role for the N-terminal segment in heparin-mediated rosette inhibition

The human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum can cause infected red blood cells (iRBC) to form rosettes with uninfected RBC, a phenotype associated with severe malaria. Rosetting is mediated by a subset of the Plasmodium falciparum membrane protein 1 (PfEMP1) variant adhesins expressed on the infected host-cell surface. Heparin and other sulfated oligosaccharides, however, can disrupt rosettes, suggesting that therapeutic approaches to this form of severe malaria are feasible. We present a structural and functional study of the N-terminal domain of PfEMP1 from the VarO variant comprising the N-terminal segment (NTS) and the first DBL domain (DBL1α1), which is directly implicated in rosetting. We demonstrate that NTS-DBL1α1-VarO binds to RBC and that heparin inhibits this interaction in a dose-dependent manner, thus mimicking heparin-mediated rosette disruption. We have determined the crystal structure of NTS-DBL1α1, showing that NTS, previously thought to be a structurally independent component of PfEMP1, forms an integral part of the DBL1α domain. Using mutagenesis and docking studies, we have located the heparin-binding site, which includes NTS. NTS, unique to the DBL α-class domain, is thus an intrinsic structural and functional component of the N-terminal VarO domain. The specific interaction observed with heparin opens the way for developing antirosetting therapeutic strategies.